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Built on IMAGES Group’s over three-decade engagement with the retail ecosystem, and shaped by IMAGES RetailME’s deep regional connection with industry leaders, this is a curated series of one-day, high-intensity executive immersions designed for the next generation of retail leadership. Each program draws from those who have built, scaled, and run businesses. Mentored by veteran retail leaders and grounded in real decisions, the learning is structured for immediate application within participants’ current roles.

CFO Strategy for Retail Growth

Mentor: Rajesh Garg

June 25, 2026

Deep Dive Into the Curriculum

One Day

Intensive Immersion

Curriculum

Ideal For Leaders with 10+ Years Experience

Mentorship

By Retail Industry Leaders

Certification

by IMAGES RetailME

Join the Module

Name
T&C

Module 1 — June 25, 2026
 CFO Strategy for Retail Growth
 An Executive Certification in
Retail Financial Intelligence & AI

A One-Day Immersion for Retail Business Heads

Under the Mentorship of

RAJESH GARG

Managing Partner

Co-Founder & CEO

Ex-

Connect on LinkedIn

— Mentor
 Faculty Credentials

  • Managing Partner, RAH Capital Partners (Investments & Advisory) in Consumer & Retail
  • Co-Founder & CEO, EMIRLabs.ai, bringing AI into the enterprise
  • Former Group CFO & Chief Sustainability Officer, Landmark Group, operating across 21 countries, 20M+ sq. ft., 2000+ stores and 35,000+ employees
  • 25+ years of global leadership across retail, consumer, pharma, and technology sectors
  • Held senior executive roles at GE, P&G, Cadbury Schweppes, Tesco, and Cipla across finance, strategy, and transformation
  • Launched several world leading brands in fragrances, baby care, home care, chocolates as well as a commodity trading and transportation business
  • Co-founded and exited a SAAS enterprise Marketing company in Silicon Valley
  • Led enterprise-wide transformation at scale, integrating shared services, AI, RPA, and blockchain into retail operations
  • Portfolio rationalisation & cost reengineering across sectors

— Program
 Overview

A one-day immersion into how retail businesses are run in practice.

Structured around seven pillars:
Choice, Consumer, Competition, Channel, Capital, Consciousness, and Co-Worker.

Each examined through a single discipline: Where does this show up in the numbers?

  • Margin.
  • Merchandise cost.
  • Rent.
  • People cost.
  • Working capital.
  • Cash flow.

Retail operates on tight margins. Every pillar ultimately impacts the economics of the business.

Across the day, participants work through all seven with this lens — connecting decisions directly to how they play out on their own balance sheet.

Alongside this, participants will build and take back working AI agents, designed during the session to support real decisions across these pillars.

— Methodology
 The C7 Framework

Seven pillars of retail, each examined through strategy and financial impact.

01

Strategy

Choice

02

Demand

Consumer

03

Market dynamics

Competition

04

Commerce & footprint

Channel

05

P&L, Cash Flow, and Capital Allocation

Capital

06

Sustainability

Consciousness

07

AI as a decision layer

Co-Worker

— Curriculum
 Module Breakdown

01
MODULE 1 Choice — Strategy & Decision-Making

Focus

Strategy expressed through decisions that carry financial impact

Where It Shows Up in the Numbers

  • Margin structure
  • Inventory levels
  • Capital allocation
  • Opportunity cost

Executive Exercise

  • Identify high-cost “yes” decisions
  • Identify critical “no” decisions
  • Assess their financial impact

Key Areas

  • Markets, formats, and categories
  • Sources of advantage
  • Capability focus
  • Decision discipline

AI Integration

  • Agent that:
  • Evaluates strategic scenarios
  • Stress-tests assumptions
  • Highlights weak economic logic
  • Connects choices to financial outcomes

Focus

Understanding demand through revenue and margin impact

Where It Shows Up in the Numbers

  • Repeat purchase rates
  • Average transaction value
  • Discounting levels
  • Customer acquisition cost
  • Lifetime value

Executive Exercise

  • Identify key revenue-driving segments
  • Map behaviour to margin impact
  • Identify leakage in pricing or retention

Key Areas

  • Demand drivers
  • Loyalty and repeat behaviour
  • Pricing power
  • Customer segmentation

AI Integration

  • Agent that:
  • Predicts churn
  • Identifies high-value customers
  • Recommends targeted actions
  • Tracks impact on revenue and margin

Focus

Interpreting competition through financial impact

Where It Shows Up in the Numbers

  • Pricing pressure
  • Cost disadvantage
  • Margin erosion

Executive Exercise

  • Identify a competitor risk
  • Define a financial exposure scenario
  • Assess potential impact

Key Areas

  • Competitive positioning
  • Cost structures
  • Market signals
  • Substitute threats

AI Integration

  • Agent that:
  • Tracks competitor signals
  • Detects shifts early
  • Flags margin risks
  • Builds competitive intelligence

Focus

Understanding channels through unit economics

Where It Shows Up in the Numbers

  • Store profitability
  • Cost to serve
  • Inventory holding cost
  • Working capital

Executive Exercise

  • Classify store performance
  • Identify cost-heavy channels
  • Recommend one financial adjustment

Key Areas

  • Store productivity
  • Digital and omnichannel economics
  • Channel roles
  • Inventory movement

AI Integration

  • Agent that:
  • Evaluates store performance
  • Identifies expansion opportunities
  • Optimises inventory flow
  • Tracks channel efficiency

Focus

Reading the business through its financial structure

Where It Shows Up in the Numbers

  • Gross margin
  • Operating cost ratios
  • Cash conversion
  • Capital efficiency

Executive Exercise

  • Identify cost improvement areas
  • Benchmark key cost heads
  • Define one financial correction

Key Areas

  • P&L composition
  • Merchandise cost
  • Rent and occupancy cost
  • People cost
  • Working capital
  • Cash flow

AI Integration

  • Agent that:
  • Tracks financial performance
  • Identifies inefficiencies
  • Models impact of decisions
  • Generates structured insights

Focus

Connecting sustainability to operating performance

Where It Shows Up in the Numbers

  • Cost structure
  • Efficiency gains
  • Long-term financial impact

Executive Exercise

  • Evaluate one initiative
  • Identify cost implications
  • Define improvement path

Key Areas

  • Cost-carbon relationship
  • Supply chain impact
  • ESG integration
  • Operational efficiency

AI Integration

  • Agent that:
  • Tracks cost and emissions
  • Identifies inefficiencies
  • Models improvements
  • Supports reporting

Focus

Using AI as a working layer across decisions

Where It Shows Up in the Numbers

  • Productivity
  • Cost reduction
  • Decision speed
  • Operating leverage

Executive Exercise

  • Define one AI use case
  • Identify expected impact
  • Outline implementation

Key Areas

  • AI agents
  • Workflows
  • Data integration
  • Governance

AI Integration

  • System that:
  • Supports daily decisions
  • Generates insights
  • Tracks exceptions
  • Prepares decision inputs

— Outcomes
 What you Leave with

  • A direct link between decisions and numbers — ready to apply within their own P&L
  • Working AI agents built during the session, deployable across key business decisions
  • Access to a senior retail leader and mentor, with continued engagement beyond the program
  • A high-quality peer network across retail and the broader ecosystem
  • An IMAGES RetailME certification, signed and endorsed by a leading industry practitioner
“I wish I had this
when I was running companies.”
— RAJESH GARG

— Cohort
 Who this Program is for — and Why it Matters

01
Audience 1 Retail Organisations

Who This Includes

CEOs, Managing Directors, CFOs, COOs, CMOs, Business Heads, Category Leaders

Why This Program Matters

  • Build a structured view of how strategy, capital, and operations connect
  • Move beyond siloed decision-making to integrated thinking across functions
  • Evaluate growth, profitability, and risk using a single framework
  • Make sharper choices under real business constraints

Who This Includes

Shopping Centre Heads, Leasing Heads, Asset Managers, Commercial Leaders

Why This Program Matters

  • Understand how retail brands evaluate store performance and expansion decisions
  • Align leasing strategy with tenant profitability, not just occupancy
  • Anticipate how brands think about footprint optimisation and store closures
  • Build stronger, longer-term tenant partnerships based on economics

Who This Includes

Founders, CEOs, Product Heads, Enterprise Sales Leaders, Solution Architects

Why This Program Matters

  • Understand how retail leaders prioritise technology investments and automation ROI
  • See how technology decisions are evaluated within P&L and capital frameworks
  • Align product and solution design with real operational and financial impact
  • Move from feature-led selling to decision-aligned value creation

Who This Includes

Strategy Consultants, Retail Advisors, Transformation Experts

Why This Program Matters

  • Go beyond generic frameworks to retail-specific decision-making logic
  • Understand how leaders balance growth, cost, capital, and execution
  • Deliver recommendations that are commercially viable and implementable
  • Improve credibility by aligning with how operators actually think

Who This Includes

Private Equity, Family Offices, Investment Teams, Strategic Investors

Why This Program Matters

  • Evaluate retail businesses through unit economics, capital efficiency, and cash flow quality
  • Understand what drives sustainable growth vs superficial expansion
  • Identify early signals of strength or stress in a retail business
  • Make better-informed investment and portfolio decisions

Who This Includes

FMCG Leaders, Consumer Brand Managers, Category Heads, Sales & Distribution Leaders, Trade Marketing Heads, D2C & E-commerce Leaders

Why This Program Matters

  • Understand how retail partners make decisions across assortment, pricing, and expansion
  • Align go-to-market and channel strategies with retail economics and margin structures
  • Anticipate how retailers evaluate brands, performance, and shelf space allocation
  • Strengthen collaboration by thinking in terms of retail profitability, not just brand growth

Who This Includes

Supply Chain Partners, Logistics Providers, Marketing Agencies, Experience Designers

Why This Program Matters

  • Understand how their work impacts core business decisions across cost, growth, and customer experience
  • Align services with measurable business outcomes, not just deliverables
  • Anticipate client expectations based on real decision pressures
  • Build deeper, more strategic relationships with retail clients

Individual

Single seat
( 1 person )
AED 3,500 AED 3,000 / Per seat

Group

3 or more from one organisation
( 3+ people )
AED 2,500 / Per person

Corporate / Full Cohort

Exclusive cohort for your organisation ( Up to 25 people )
AED 50,000 / Single cohort fee

— Overview
 What it is

  • A one-day, high-intensity executive immersion for retail leaders and operators
  • Built on the C7 Compass — seven pillars of retail, viewed through strategy, operations, and financial impact
  • Led by a former retail CFO, bringing a real operator's lens to decision-making
  • Focused on how decisions translate into margin, merchandise cost, rent, people cost, working capital, and cash flow
  • Designed for direct application within participants' own business context

— Distinction
 Why it is Different

  • Every pillar is examined through its financial consequence
  • Strategy, consumer, competition, and channels are connected directly to margin and cost structure
  • Benchmarks reflect real retail economics — merchandise cost, rent, people cost, and operating margins
  • AI is used as a working layer to support analysis, simulation, and decision clarity
  • Learning is anchored in real operating experience and commercial reality
  • Participants leave with decisions they can apply within their own P&L

— Benchmark
 How this Program Compares with Global Executive Education

01
Dimension 1 Program Orientation

Global Executive Programs (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, MIT)

Broad-based executive education across industries

IMAGES RetailME — Executive Program

Retail-specific executive immersion

Global Executive Programs (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, MIT)

Professor-led, research and case method driven

IMAGES RetailME — Executive Program

Guided by retail leaders with deep operating experience

Global Executive Programs (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, MIT)

Build conceptual understanding of management frameworks

IMAGES RetailME — Executive Program

Build decision-making capability in real retail contexts

Global Executive Programs (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, MIT)

Cross-industry applicability

IMAGES RetailME — Executive Program

Deep focus on retail, formats, and market realities

Global Executive Programs (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, MIT)

Multi-week or modular programs

IMAGES RetailME — Executive Program

One-day, high-intensity immersion

Global Executive Programs (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, MIT)

Covered as one of many modules

IMAGES RetailME — Executive Program

Central to the program's structure and thinking

Global Executive Programs (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, MIT)

Introduced as emerging capability

IMAGES RetailME — Executive Program

Integrated as a decision layer within business operations

Global Executive Programs (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, MIT)

Conceptual clarity and broader management perspective

IMAGES RetailME — Executive Program

Immediate ability to structure and make better business decisions

Limited Cohort
 Step into your Next Role in Retail Leadership.

Apply to join the next IMAGES RetailME Executive Program cohort and earn your role-specific certification.

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IMAGES RetailME · Executive Program in Retail Leadership

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