Director - Catalog

Location: Bengaluru

Role:
Director - Catalog

Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Our Story

Zepto is India’s fastest-growing quick-commerce startup, redefining how customers shop for groceries and essentials by delivering them in minutes. Our rapid expansion across all major metros — Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Kolkata — is powered by a deep focus on catalog innovation, operational excellence, and technology-driven scalability. We’re backed by top investors like Y Combinator, Glade Brook, and Nexus Venture Partners, and led by a world-class team from Uber, Flipkart, Dream
11, and top global institutions.

Role Overview

The  Director – Catalog  will own and scale Zepto’s end-to-end product catalog strategy across categories, driving accuracy, discoverability, conversion, and scalability. This role goes beyond content hygiene and focuses on catalog as a growth and conversion lever, powered by automation, AI/ML, and platform thinking.
The role requires deep expertise in large-scale e-commerce catalog systems, strong leadership skills, and the ability to partner closely with Product, Engineering, Category, Supply Chain, and CX teams.

What You’ll Own

1. Catalog Strategy & Vision

• Define and own the long-term catalog vision aligned with Zepto’s growth, assortment expansion, and hyperlocal operating model.

• Build a future-ready catalog framework that supports speed commerce, dynamic assortment, and real-time availability.

• Position catalog as a core product capability, not just a backend function.

2. Catalog Quality, Accuracy & Scale

• Ensure best-in-class catalog accuracy across attributes, pricing, images, variants, compliance, and regulatory metadata.

• Drive zero-defect cataloging standards at scale, balancing speed with quality.

• Own catalog governance, taxonomy, attribute schemas, and data standards across categories.

3. Automation, AI & Platform Thinking

• Lead the shift from manual cataloging to  AI-driven and automated catalog creation, enrichment, and validation .

• Partner with Product & Engineering to build scalable catalog platforms, APIs, and self-serve tools for internal and external stakeholders.

• Leverage AI for  attribute extraction, image intelligence, deduplication, anomaly detection, and catalog health monitoring .

4. Discovery, Conversion & Customer Experience

• Optimize catalog for search relevance, browse journeys, filters, ranking, and merchandising .

• Partner with Growth and Product teams to improve CTR, CVR, and basket size through superior catalog presentation.

• Ensure catalog readiness for personalization, recommendations, and dynamic merchandising .

5. Cross-Functional Leadership

• Act as a key partner to Category, Supply, Product, Engineering, Legal, and Operations teams.

• Influence roadmap prioritization by articulating catalog’s impact on business outcomes.

• Represent catalog in leadership forums with a data-driven, outcome-oriented mindset .

6. Team Building & Leadership

• Foster high employee engagement by creating clear ownership, growth paths, and a culture of trust, accountability, and continuous feedback.

• Actively coach leaders and teams to build a motivated, high-performing catalog organization.

• Define clear roles, success metrics, and career paths for catalog teams.

What Success Looks Like (KPIs)

• Catalog accuracy and defect rate

• Speed of new assortment onboarding

• Search and browse conversion uplift

• Reduction in manual effort through automation

• Catalog scalability vs. business growth

• Customer experience metrics linked to catalog quality

• Employee engagement and satisfaction scores

What We’re Looking For

Experience

• 12+ years of experience in e-commerce, marketplace, retail tech, or consumer internet companies.

• 5+ years in senior leadership roles owning catalog, content, or large-scale data operations.

• Proven experience managing very large, high-complexity SKU catalogs across multiple categories.

• Prior experience in quick commerce, marketplace, grocery, or high-velocity retail is strongly preferred.

Functional Expertise

• Deep understanding of  catalog systems, taxonomy design, attribute modelling, and data governance .

• Strong exposure to  AI/ML applications in…