Tata Croma’s Ritesh Ghosal enters startup space; joins natural wellness and consumer insight firms

He will have small stakes in these firms and will serve as the Chief Growth Officer.

After stepping down as the chief of marketing and business development at Croma, Ritesh Ghosal will now be lending his services to two startups. He will be serving as the Chief Growth Officer at Aasnaa and GRPS Labs, another startup in the area of insight sales. He will have small stakes in these firms.

Speaking about his next move, Ghosal said, “I had made my first business plan in 1999 for bringing a UK-based research agency into India. I have often thought about the startup world. But with a steady salary and employers like Tata, I kept hesitating. With increments and moving up the ladder, the cost of exiting and failure keeps going up. But now where I am in my life, I have nothing much left to prove and I have my retirement plans in place. So it is time to have some fun. I have always loved chasing new ideas, creating new propositions and launching new products.”

Aasnaa, a natural wellness brand, is a partnership between Unati cooperative, a farmers cooperative and Panjab Agro, Punjab Government’s agricultural development outfit. They currently have a portfolio of food products. Ghosal will be driving their growth strategies.

“That's just the beginning. The plans are to occupy a much wider Farm to Fork space- anything which is produced and processed near the farm and put directly on the consumers’ plate. These will be healthy and organic products,” he said.

He will also be creating new products for GRPS Labs. These startups are just the beginning and he plans to join a few more.