https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/before-skill-set-comes-mindset-fairprice-ceo-on-breakthrough-leadership?stcr=52D53345133141D7B77BD55E838766DC&cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=2203d22daebf4ac5ad399727d2eaa661&hctky=1237274&hdpid=1374578a-5d32-466d-9b56-18fc3c5a9738
This interview is part of the Leading Asia series featuring in-depth conversations with the region’s most influential leaders on what it takes to lead in Asia today.
If you shopped at a FairPrice supermarket in Singapore in early 2022, there’s a small chance that the person who was working the till was none other than FairPrice’s freshly minted group CEO, Vipul Chawla. “Unless I invest at least 100 hours doing something, I don’t have the license to have a conversation with my team, let alone make decisions,” Chawla says. During his first three months with the company, he tried his hand at a number of roles, including cashier, picker fulfilling online orders, and packer at a distribution center. The experience, he says, “created an empathy for what our staff went through and what was possible.”
As Chawla continues to take the helm at Singapore’s largest supermarket chain during a period of rising living costs, his empathetic approach to leadership may also prove an asset for the business’s long-standing mission, since the founding of NTUC FairPrice in 1973, to provide Singaporeans with affordably priced daily essentials. In 2019, FairPrice was formed, comprising grocery retailer NTUC FairPrice, food-catering provider NTUC Foodfare, food court and coffee shop operator Kopitiam Investment, and reward program platform NTUC Link.
To help residents cope with inflation, FairPrice rolled out several discount programs under Chawla’s leadership. When Singapore’s core inflation rose by 5.3 percent in September 2022, Chawla announced a 15 percent discount on three brands of rice along with other price-freezing initiatives across its network of supermarkets, to help alleviate the pressure on low-income families. And for the first half of 2023, the group has offered a 1 percent discount on 500 daily essentials to offset the impact of the rise in Singapore’s goods and service tax rate to 8 percent, from 7 percent.
In this Leading Asia interview with McKinsey’s Rohit Razdan, Chawla shares his strategic priorities, how he’s bolstering the resilience of the supermarket chain’s supply chain in the face of looming headwinds, and the best leadership advice he’s received. An edited transcript of the discussion follows.
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