Abhishek Prakash Rao
Director – Group Sales & Marketing, Varuna Logistics, India

Mr. APR (Mr. Abhishek P Rao), joined Group Varuna as Director – Group Sales & Marketing on March 16, 2017. He is responsible for taking Group Varuna to the next level, building on the foundation and momentum to achieve organization goals.  

APR is an accomplished business leader with experience throughout the Supply & Demand Chain in various capacities across sectors such as Automotive, Technology, Food & Beverage, Telecom, etc. excluding Chemical during his experience of more than 21 years including multinationals and Indian conglomerates.

 At GE, he worked towards the end of his stint as a Profit Center Head (looking after Order Procurement Sales Inventory and Compliance) for a USD 2.5 million BU and his first know-how with Lean and Six Sigma.

He later moved on to work for Exel Plc (the No. 1 Contract Logistics & Supply Chain Co in the World) and steered the India ship towards its first Automotive In-plant Project Implementation, USD 20 million worth EUB Customs Project, further on DHL as National Program Manager- Technology, Business Head for a Startup, Nominated CEO in the 2nd year by the Board, Nominated CEO Asia in the 3rd year by the Board.

He later joined GATI to give it a lot of firsts, such as, first ever 3 times growth in the Supply Chain Management and Solutions Engineering Business, first ever Hospitality Supply Chain Solutions Design victory, first ever YOY Operating Margin above 27 % in the FMCG sector.

He was with the Godrej Group prior to joining Group Varuna as a Business Head ecommerce and more so into operations by way of Logistics, e Delivery (Technology), Customer Service Operations & Home Delivery for Godrej Nature’s Basket a Godrej Industries Initiative. APR brings along with him, expertise in Sales & Marketing, Operations, Solutions Design Engineering, Equity advisory  and business transformation.

He is Global Advisor Board Member, ISCEA (International Supply Chain Educational Alliance) since Aug 2016, Advisory Chair for The Economic Times Global Logistics, On the Jury of Ptak Supply Chain Award, Jury of Global Logistics Award, Speaker at TAPA Asia (Transported Asset Protection Association) and Business Schools such as NITIE, Symbiosis, SP Jain, Sadhana, ISB&M, IIT Mumbai, IIM Kozhikode and Shillong. He is a Post Graduate in Business Management from NUS Business School, Singapore. He spends his leisure time by playing Golf, Music, Painting, Rifle Shooting and Playing Soccer.

Recent event participations

• Panel moderation of Pharma track at 6^th Inflection Conference and Awards on 16^th May in Mumbai moderated by Joint Secretary of Logistics
• Speaker at FICCI conference on National Logistics policy Draft held on 19-20 Feb in Delhi
• Panel moderation at Auto Connect, 2018 on 10^th October in Pune