Nirav Shah

Business and merchandising leader with 7+ years of experience driving end-to-end product lifecycle management, supplier strategy, and commercial growth across global apparel brands including Uniqlo, Diesel, Pepe Jeans, and Nautica. Currently accountable for a USD 25M business, leading sourcing, merchandising, product development, vendor partnerships, and cross-functional execution to deliver profitable growth, cost optimization, and high customer satisfaction. Proven track record of scaling business by 35% year-over-year through strategic supplier development, open-cost engineering, portfolio expansion, and operational excellence.

Experienced in vendor onboarding, commercial negotiations, market analysis, demand planning, quality improvement, and leading cross-functional teams to launch customer-focused products while maintaining strong profitability and on-time delivery.

Assistant Manager at SHAHI EXPORTS PVT LTD (2024-03 – Present)

• End-to-End Product Lifecycle: Own product lifecycle from product development and costing through sourcing, quality, production, and shipment for Men's Woven categories, ensuring products meet brand, quality, and customer requirements.
• P&L Ownership: Own P&L for the Men's Division, driving profitability decisions across product costing, supplier allocation, pricing, sourcing strategy, and execution priorities.
• Category & Business Growth: Led a 4-member team to deliver 35% YoY order growth, scaling annual volume from 4.0M to 5.5M units and growing the business to USD 25M.
• Cost & Margin Optimization: Applied open-costing and cost engineering to independently evaluate raw materials, T1/T2 supplier costs, and commercial terms; delivered 10–12% gross margin improvement while reducing leftover inventory by 30%.
• Supplier Strategy: Identify, evaluate, negotiate with suppliers and allocate business to suppliers based on capability, capacity, cost competitiveness, quality, and delivery performance.
• Product Development & Speed-to-Market: Redesigned sampling and approval workflows, reducing product development lead time by ~30% while maintaining design intent and brand standards.
• Factory & Capacity Management: Managed capability assessments and capacity planning across 5 factories, aligning supplier capacity with business demand and maintaining 100% OTIF delivery.
• Vendor Scouting & Onboarding: Scouted and onboarded a new manufacturing partner, evaluating capability, capacity, quality, compliance, and commercial viability while establishing processes required for successful business execution.
• Cross-Functional Stakeholder Management: Partnered with design, sourcing, production, quality, logistics, and brand stakeholders to resolve product and supply-chain issues and deliver business priorities.
• Business & Market Planning: Used sales projections, historical performance, product trends, supplier capacity, and cost movements to support product development, sourcing, and seasonal business planning decisions.
• Order Management: Directed end-to-end execution from product development (PD) to bulk shipment for premium global and domestic brands with annual revenue of $7.5 million.
• Portfolio Ownership: Managed men's & women's denim jeans, woven and shirts portfolio representing ~40% of total garment business of the company. Introduced new product category to diversify the business.
• Pre-production activity: - Coordinated pre-production activities across multiple brand calendars simultaneously; tracked PP sample approvals, trim approvals, and bulk fabric status against TNA.
• Forecasting & Negotiation: Led buyer negotiations, finalized garment costing, aligned cash flow, and forecasted seasonal margins using demand and raw material trends.
• Sourcing & Development: Collaborated with fabric mills and design teams to develop seasonal materials and tech packs aligned to trends, buyer needs, and target price points.

Executive Merchant at Ashima LTD (2022-03 – 2023-12)

• Order Management: Directed end-to-end execution from product development (PD) to bulk shipment for premium global and domestic brands with annual revenue of $7.5 million.
• Portfolio Ownership: Managed men's & women's denim jeans, woven and shirts portfolio representing ~40% of total garment business of the company. Introduced new product category to diversify the business.
• Pre-production activity: - Coordinated pre-production activities across multiple brand calendars simultaneously; tracked PP sample approvals, trim approvals, and bulk fabric status against TNA.
• Forecasting & Negotiation: Led buyer negotiations, finalized garment costing, aligned cash flow, and forecasted seasonal margins using demand and raw material trends.
• Sourcing & Development: Collaborated with fabric mills and design teams to develop seasonal materials and tech packs aligned to trends, buyer needs, and target price points.

Freelance 3D Designer / Merchandiser at Independent Consultant (CLO 3D) (2021-01 – 2022-01)

• 3D Prototyping: Created digital garment prototypes in CLO 3D to accelerate sampling cycles, reduce iterations, and improve design-to-merchandising alignment.
• Waste Reduction: Reduced physical sampling and material waste by validating fit, silhouette, and construction virtually before physical development.

Assistant Merchant at khushal clothing LLP (2019-06 – 2021-01)

• Account Support: Managed PD and merchandising support for men's trousers, jeans, shirt and T-shirt across key domestic accounts; ensured timely sample submissions and smooth pre-production readiness to meet buyer timelines.

Production Trainee at khushal clothing LLP (2018-10 – 2019-06)

• Assisted in factory setup for Trouser and shirt (line layout planning)
• Techpack analysis and operation update.
• Identify the bottleneck operations and eliminate them and line balancing based on WIP

National Indtitute of Fashion Technology