About Me
I study how brands are built. Then I help build them.
I am a strategist, operator, educator, and the person behind this blog.
For over three decades, I’ve built, scaled, and advised consumer brands across categories – from coffee and craft beer to fashion, electronics, pet care, and retail. Not from the sidelines. From inside the room where product decisions get made, positioning gets pressure-tested, and growth either compounds or stalls.
What I do now
I’m Senior Advisor at Prequate Advisory, a Bengaluru-based strategic consulting firm where I work with founders and leadership teams on market positioning, retail expansion, growth acceleration, and operational scaling. My mandate spans brand strategy, go-to-market design, consumer insight work, and M&A advisory – the kind of work where deep financial acumen meets brand imagination.
I’m also a co-founder at Much Petter, an Indian D2C pet supplement brand. We formulate, manufacture, and sell veterinary-grade supplements for dogs and cats. Building Much Petter keeps me honest about every framework I teach: when you’re optimising formulation costs while maintaining clinical efficacy, theory meets reality very quickly.
I teach marketing and consumer behaviour at business schools. The classroom keeps my thinking sharp and forces me to explain things simply, which is harder than it sounds.
Where I’ve been
The career has been deliberately varied – because the best brand thinking comes from operating across contexts, not within one. I’ve been CEO of Ironhill India, scaling the country’s largest microbrewery chain into Tier 2 cities. Before that, leadership and strategy roles at Café Coffee Day, Universal Sportsbiz (Wrogn), Future Group, and Intel – spanning coffee, celebrity fashion, organised retail, and B2B technology. On the consulting side, I’ve advised across FMCG, e-commerce, QSR, and healthcare at Centigo and worked with non-profits on capability building at Toolbox India.
I hold a management degree from T.A. Pai Management Institute (TAPMI) and was educated at College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Manipal
What I write about
This blog is where I think out loud about brand building, marketing strategy, and consumer behaviour. Not summaries of what others have said. Original arguments, backed by data, informed by practice.
Brand strategy and theory – why great brands are systems rather than departments, what drives aspirational markets, how fear and aesthetics shape loyalty, the economics of what spreads freely versus what captures revenue, and the paradox of modern brand value.
Business analysis – deep dives into companies like Ulta Beauty, Nokia, Kodak, Bira 91, and others, studied not for hagiography but for the structural lessons, and warnings, they offer.
Proprietary frameworks – I develop and publish original strategic tools, including the V³ Framework (Value × Velocity × Virtue), the SELF Index for identity-based loyalty measurement, and the Prequate StratMap for growth strategy.
Iconic Ads series – detailed histories of landmark Indian and global advertising campaigns: Only Vimal, Santoor, Gold Spot, Thums Up, VIP Luggage, Vadilal, NECC’s egg campaign, Apple’s IBM welcome, IKEA, Chivas Regal, and more.
The lighter side – a “Fun Series” drawing parallels between unexpected things and corporate life. What whisky, tequila, vodka, and a Kerala Sadya teach you about organisations. These are more popular than my serious pieces, and I’ve made my peace with that.
My publications
https://www.forbesindia.com/article/storyboard18/throwback-neccs-eggcellent-roz-khao-ande/75431/1