Bengaluru, Mar 12 (IANS): Ahead of opening its first store in India, the world's largest furniture retailer Ikea on Monday announced that Peter Betzel would be its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for its India business.
"Betzel, a 25-year Ikea veteran, will take over from outgoing India CEO Juvencio Maeztu, who moves as the Chief Financial Officer and Deputy CEO of Ikea Group," said the Swedish home furnishings major in a statement here.
As the first major single-brand retailer to get government approval to invest Rs 10,500 crore in India five years ago, Ikea plans to open its first store in Hyderabad in mid-2018 followed by another in Mumbai in 2019.
"Betzel will lead Ikea expansion into India beginning with the upcoming launch of our first store in Hyderabad later this year. He moves from Germany, the group's largest market", noted the statement.
Prior to leading Germany, Betzel was Ikea's country manager in Spain.
"India is a vibrant, multi-cultural, multi-faceted and an exciting market for us. Its people are ready to experiment with their home and surroundings. They want to have a good lifestyle, as evident from the way they work and live," said Betzel on his appointment to lead the India operations.
Besides growth, Betzel will focus on ramping up the company's workforce to 15,000 over time from 400 employees presently.
"Over the last six years, we laid a strong foundation for our presence in India. We are ready to open our doors to enable customers create a better life at home for themselves," said Maeztu on the occasion.
Known for leadership and ability to drive growth in diverse markets, Betzel will work with teams to bring in global shopping experience, offering quality and affordable home furnishing products to consumers across the country.
Ikea, which has been sourcing from India for over 30 years for its global stores, has 50 suppliers and 45,000 direct employees.
With 403 stores in 49 countries worldwide, the 38-billion euro group company had 936 million customers visiting its stores worldwide and 2.3 billion hits on its online store in 2017.