Marketing executives of real estate companies are quitting to join rivals or to pursue personal interests amid a prolonged slowdown in the industry.
The most recent departure was that of Girish Shah, chief marketing officer at Godrej Properties, who joined the Wadhwa Group as director to oversee its information technology, sales and marketing, and customer relationship management functions.
"Promoters want to grow their companies and are realising the importance of hiring the right professionals," said Shah, who has worked with Reckitt & Colman, the UB Group and the Reliance ADA Group.
Smeeta Neogi, vice-president, marketing, at Mahindra Lifespaces quit for personal reasons. She earlier headed marketing at ET Now, Zoom and the Tata-owned Trent. Neogi could not be contacted for comments.
A couple of months ago, Bharath Duppar, chief marketing officer of the Mumbai-based Omkar Group, quit to join Sheth Creators as chief executive officer. "I was looking to move. I had an opportunity to move into a CEO position," Dhuppar said.
"There has been a split in the Lodha, Wadhwa and Sheth families in the last couple of years. As new companies come up, they require management professionals," said the chief executive of a fund management company who did not wish to be named.
After the split in the Lodha group, its chief marketing officer R Karthik and chief financial officer Anurag Singhvi quit to set up their own real estate services firm.
"Some kinds of properties are selling better, like well-located budget housing. Marketing professionals have an easier time selling such properties and look for opportunities with developers that offer them," said Anuj Puri, chairman and country head at JLL India, a global property consultant.
Puri also said expectations among developers from sales and marketing personnel increased when properties were not selling well. "These expectations may not be aligned with the market realities and result in extraordinary job pressures," he added.
According to a report from online real estate firm PropTiger, sales of houses in 2015-16 dropped 33 per cent from a year earlier to 211,000, marking a third straight year of fall. Launches of housing projects in 2015-16 declined 46 per cent from a year ago.
Even property consultancies are witnessing a churn. Sanjay Dutt, managing director of Cushman & Wakefield, quit and is expected to join a real estate development company as CEO.
Cushman has appointed former DTZ CEO Anshul Jain as managing director.
"Dutt grew Cushman & Wakefield. Now he is getting into the development business," said a senior executive who did not wish to be named.
Property consultant CBRE on Monday said it had appointed Raka Khashu Razdan as head of marketing and communications.
