AVP- Operations

Keka Inc.; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 3,000,000 - 4,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Keka Inc. is seeking a senior strategist to own network expansion, site selection, and P&L design for dark stores and delivery.

You will translate messy data into decisions, test hypotheses on the floor, and drive implementations with ops teams on the ground. You will build scalable models for city entry, store sizing, and economics, while leading cross-functional teams across operations, finance, and tech.

Qualifications

• 7-12 years of experience in strategy, business planning, or operations roles in quick commerce, e-commerce, grocery, or hyperlocal logistics.
• Strong command of dark store and delivery economics: throughput, order density, cost per order, wastage, and contribution margin.
• Excellent analytical and financial modeling skills, with fluency in Excel/Sheets and SQL; familiarity with BI tools is a plus.
• Ability to structure ambiguous problems, form a clear point of view, and communicate it simply to founders and investors.
• A bias for execution: you have driven initiatives to results, not only written recommendations.
• Comfort working on the ground with store and city teams and earning their trust.
• Strong stakeholder management across ops, category, finance, tech, and marketing.
• MBA or engineering degree from a reputed institution preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own the unit economics model at order, store, and city level: contribution margin, delivery cost, wastage, rent, and manpower.
• Diagnose bottlenecks in picking, packing, inventory flow, and delivery using data and floor observation.
• Design and pilot process changes, automation, and new SOPs, then roll out those that work.
• Set productivity benchmarks and targets for stores, cities, and the delivery fleet.
• Model the trade-offs between delivery speed, cost per order, and rider supply, and recommend SLA and incentive strategies.
• Build the operating metrics framework and the daily, weekly, and monthly review dashboards.

Skills

Excel/Sheets

SQL

BI tools

Financial modeling

Stakeholder management

Execution bias

Education

MBA or engineering degree

Tools

BI tools

Job description

About the Role

You will be the strategic brain of operations. You will work directly on where we expand, how we design our network, and how we reach unit-economics breakeven. You will turn messy operational data into clear decisions, then work with the ops teams on the ground to make them happen.

This is not a pure consulting role. You will be expected to go to dark stores, test your hypotheses on the floor, and own the outcomes of the initiatives you launch.

What You Will Own

Network and expansion strategy

• Decide which cities and micro-markets to enter, and in what sequence, using demand, competition, and economics data.
• Build models for dark store site selection, catchment sizing, store count per city, and mother hub design.
• Define the store format and sizing strategy: SKU count, area, throughput capacity, and capex.
• Evaluate build vs. partner vs. acquire options for new cities.

Unit economics and P&L strategy

• Own the unit economics model at order, store, and city level: contribution margin, delivery cost, wastage, rent, and manpower.
• Identify and size the levers that improve contribution margin, and prioritize them by impact and effort.
• Build the path to store-level and city-level breakeven, with clear milestones and tracking.
• Support annual budgets, operating plans with clear numbers and narratives.

Operating model and productivity

• Diagnose bottlenecks in picking, packing, inventory flow, and delivery using data and floor observation.
• Design and pilot process changes, automation, and new SOPs, then roll out those that work.
• Set productivity benchmarks and targets for stores, cities, and the delivery fleet.
• Evaluate make-vs-buy decisions on delivery fleets, staffing models, and 3PL partners.

Delivery, supply, and inventory strategy

• Model the trade-offs between delivery speed, cost per order, and rider supply, and recommend SLA and incentive strategies.
• Work with supply teams to improve fill rate, wastage, and inventory turns.
• Assess fresh, private label, and cold chain opportunities from an operations and margin perspective.

Analytics, dashboards, and decision systems

• Build the operating metrics framework and the daily, weekly, and monthly review dashboards.
• Run experiments and pilots (store layouts, shift patterns, delivery zones, pricing of delivery) and read results rigorously.
• Partner with tech and data teams on ops tooling requirements and data quality.

What We're Looking For

• 7-12 years of experience, with 3+ years in strategy, business planning, or operations-strategy roles in quick commerce, e-commerce, grocery, food delivery, or hyperlocal logistics; consulting experience followed by an operating role is a strong profile.
• Strong command of dark store and delivery economics: throughput, order density, cost per order, wastage, and contribution margin.
• Excellent analytical and financial modeling skills, with fluency in Excel/Sheets and SQL; familiarity with BI tools is a plus.
• Ability to structure ambiguous problems, form a clear point of view, and communicate it simply to founders and investors.
• A bias for execution: you have driven initiatives to results, not only written recommendations.
• Comfort working on the ground with store and city teams and earning their trust.
• Strong stakeholder management across ops, category, finance, tech, and marketing.
• MBA or engineering degree from a reputed institution preferred.