Pavan Singh

Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business

“Apparel and footwear industry professional. I’m experienced in combining design innovation techniques with customer buying patterns.”

Hometown: New Delhi, India

Fun Fact About Yourself: During COVID-19, I collaborated with four artists to create a curated range inspired by styles and themes in their art.

Undergraduate School and Major: University of Southern California, Business Administration

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: Vice President of Growth Strategy for Woodland Shoes (India’s premier footwear retail brand)

What excites you most about studying in Washington, DC? I have always grown up in cities and need a bustling environment to grow personally and career-wise. Washington provides an incredibly modern city atmosphere without being overly stimulating.  It also has a rich mix of great architecture and cultural institutions. I will be living in Logan Circle which is a very modern area with great theaters, restaurants, and bars.

However, what I am most excited about is engaging with the community. Everyone that I meet in Washington, D.C., is intellectual. They are very aware of their immediate surroundings as well as global events. A lot of people here are striving to make positive change and I am excited to collaborate and contribute.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of Georgetown McDonough’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? What attracted me most toward the program was a sense of openness from the faculty. While attending seminars during the application process, I noticed that McDonough’s faculty and career center resources were very open to feedback compared to other schools. This is important because I have seen traditional industries in my home country being disrupted by companies with a technological and innovative edge. More than ever, the field of business is prone to sudden and unexpected changes. McDonough’s mission towards inculcating new approaches in the curriculum and recruitment practices by understanding the needs of the market as well as students was a differentiating factor for me.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at Georgetown McDonough? I am excited to join the Retail and Luxury Association because over the past few years, I have worked in multiple roles in the Indian retail industry. Through this, I have gained insights on customer behavior across multiple regions within India and in neighboring countries like the UAE, China, and South Africa. I am excited to learn from other students who have worked in this industry across functions.

The United States is the leader of the retail industry in terms of brand creation and positioning capabilities. It will be a valuable experience for me to adopt frameworks and insights from students who have worked in large brands in America. I am excited to exchange learnings about the South-Asian organized retail market, which is on the verge of exponential growth due to a rise in disposable income.

Georgetown McDonough programming focuses heavily on instilling a global mindset. Why is exposure to global diversity so critical to business success? Having a global mindset sounds like a cliché, but possessing this quality opens up avenues for collaborations and synergies that are not conceivable by being limited to a certain geography. At Woodland, I experienced this firsthand while doing intensive research for new product development. I learned that even though we were primarily creating an offering for Indian customers, our competition was not limited to other Indian retail brands. In this economy, customers are accustomed to global trends and preferences.

Therefore, while sourcing products and creating an offering, we could not be limited to Indian suppliers. I was part of a delegation from my company that visited trade shows in Turkey, Germany, China, and Italy to find suppliers and producers who could provide us with expertise that we were not able to find when restricted to India and South Asia. Through these visits, I also realized how important it is to learn about cultural differences in order to create trust and do international business.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: Post-COVID-19, Woodland’s goal was to create same-store growth by improving the product offering. I took up this challenge and visited more than 100 Woodland retail stores from North, West, East, and South India, spending 3-4 days in each state talking to customers, managers, and sales staff. I also analyzed sales and marketing strategies of organized and unorganized competitors.

This exercise gave me a nuanced understanding of market forces at play in each region. I was able to identify a gap in the apparel market where Woodland could play a role. Accordingly, I created a design strategy to revamp our summer apparel collection by integrating these learnings. This included planning the depth and width of sub-categories as well as color schemes and product features that enriched the offering. The merchandise I curated included 60 apparel SKUs and received 100%* approval from regional sales teams and was launched in 400 retail stores across all regions of India.

*Approval ratings are typically 40-50% for new product launches.

Looking ahead two years, what would make your MBA experience successful? My MBA experience will be successful if I am able to hone in on my current strengths and add to my knowledge base. At the end of two years, I want to become more equipped to deal with large strategic projects within retail and associated industries. My previous role helped me learn and successfully implement revenue generation frameworks in the retail business. My goal is to complement this skill with a greater understanding of operational and technological best practices.

I wish to achieve this by exploring Georgetown’s resources in terms of faculty and alumni as well as by creating strong bonds with classmates with a similar drive as mine.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Georgetown McDonough’s MBA program? Georgetown places a lot of emphasis on caring for the whole person. This virtue that applicants need to possess and clearly demonstrate includes academics and career progression – but also goes beyond these. The school wants to make you a better person at the end of the two years, therefore you must showcase humility, collaboration, and value-driven thinking. Without these qualities, and an eagerness to learn, the principles of Georgetown will be difficult to uphold.

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