Podcasts

In this episode, Reuben sits down with Damodar Mall – one of the rare leaders in Indian retail who has been instrumental in shaping three of India’s largest retail giants: DMart, Future Group, and Reliance Retail. From an IIT Bombay engineer who shocked his Marwadi family by choosing to “sell soap” at Hindustan Unilever, to co-founding DMart with Mr. Damani, to today running one of Reliance’s largest retail formats, Damodar shares the audacious bets, near-death moments, and unglamorous wholesale-market education that built his career. He breaks down why he believes retail is a “calling” and not a profession, what his 2010 brush with meningitis taught him, and the single biggest setback of his career – losing the IP of a retail concept he himself created.

The conversation goes deep into leadership, India’s consumer story, and the future of retail. Damodar unpacks why Reliance is “a startup at scale,” how he runs sub-scale risk-taking with one store as a complete market, and what truly separates legacy brands from the new wave of D2C founders. He shares five sharp insights into the modern Indian consumer – emerging yet asserting, collective, celebration-led, and proudly value-conscious – and reveals why he believes this is the best time in history to build a consumer brand in India. He also opens up about the rowdy horse vs lame horse philosophy of leadership, his rule of always playing outside his comfort zone, and what working closely with Mr. Mukesh Ambani has taught him about hands-on entrepreneurship at scale.