New Big C chief boasts strong experience in retail field
Robert James Cissell, the newly appointed president and chief executive of Big C Supercenter, aims to bring valuable retail experience from his previous assignments in many strategic markets such as India, China and Britain to achieve further success for
Cissell was appointed to the top post by the company’s board of directors on Wednesday, after a transition process closely coordinated by Yves Braibant, his predecessor.
Cissell, 54, joined Big C in April as the company’s chief operating officer. He previously held senior leadership positions in international retail groups, including CEO of Reliance Retail in India since 2011 and, before that, chief operating officer of Walmart China in 2008.
After more than 13 years at the helm of Big C Thailand, Braibant chose to leave for family reasons and will return to France, where he will continue to support Groupe Casino as a consultant.
Cissell is a seasoned retail veteran with more than 32 years of experience in the field.
Besides Reliance Retail, part of India’s largest conglomerate Reliance Group, and Walmart (China), he served as CEO of British retailer Robert Dyas, as well as CEO of Group Commercial of Kingfisher overseeing the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hong Kong and mainland China.
He said the key to Big C’s success was focusing on always meeting customer needs and exceeding their expectations, offering Big C associates opportunities to develop and grow, and promoting “one team and shared objectives” to deliver great results.
Growing the existing business along with new concepts, both physical and online, delivering operational excellence across the business, and driving down unnecessary costs, as well as being innovative and first to market and being a high-performance culture regardless of the challenges, are also important, according to Cissell,
Great legacy
“I look forward to building on Big C’s great legacy,” he said, adding that he would lead the company’s team in always believing that “we can do it and we can win”.
He is also set out to deliver results to Big C’s operations through the development of new formats and services at all stores including Big C Supercenter, Big C Extra, Big C Jumbo, Big C Market, Mini Big C and Pure Drugstore outlets along with online shopping.
Currently, Big C operates 123 large-format stores (Big C Supercenter, Extra and Jumbo), 36 Big C Markets, 315 Mini Big C shops (82 in Bangchak service stations), and 151 Pure Drugstores in the country.
