---
title: "Cherian John - Vice President Strategy, Building SkillZi in Bengaluru | Tal"
description: "Meet Cherian John, Consumer-tech, Retail/E-com, Consumer goods | Ex Amazon | Ex Castrol | ISB based in Bengaluru. AI stack includes claude code, claude, and deepseek."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/cherian-john/share-image"
---

# Cherian John on Tal

## Headline

Consumer\-tech, Retail/E\-com, Consumer goods \| Ex Amazon \| Ex Castrol \| ISB

## About

Sales, Marketing and Leadership expert with MBA from Indian School of Business\. Passionate about leadership, key account management, sales strategy, channel management and marketing strategy

## Location

Bengaluru

## AI stack

claude code

claude

deepseek

elevenlabs

gemini

Kling AI

## Work experience

Vice President Strategy, Building SkillZi at mPokket, Jan 2025 \- Present · 1 yr 9 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Heading SkillZi \- India's first AI led edutainment platform\. SkillZi offers practical learning for today's youth who are constrained for time and access, to help them unlock their potential and supercharge their financial journey\. \- Lead the product ideation and development with a 15 member Tech & Product team \- Manage Content creation through a team of 30\+ content creators \- Lead customer acquisition and growth along with new country launches\. We are completely bootstrapped with over 2\.5lac paid subscribers and a Revenue ARR of INR 12Cr as of Dec'25\.

Head, Paid Account Management, Americas & Emerging Markets at Amazon, Feb 2024 \- Jan 2025 · 1 yr, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Lead the Amazon Vendor Services for North America and Emerging Markets through a team of 200\+ catering to 1000\+ tier 1 vendors\.

Category Head, India Toys at Amazon, May 2022 \- Feb 2024 · 1 yr 10 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Lead the India Toys Business\. Manage a team of 9 Category manager/Brand specialists\.

Sr\. Category Manager at Amazon, Mar 2020 \- May 2022 · 2 yrs 3 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Built the school books category in Amazon IN \(2\.5X growth in 12 months\) by driving inputs like selection expansion, availability and pricing

Head, Trade and Shopper Marketing \(Interim\) at Castrol, Sep 2019 \- Feb 2020 · 6 mos, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Senior Brand Manager\-Castrol Activ at Castrol, Sep 2018 \- Feb 2020 · 1 yr 6 mos, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Castrol Activ is the largest lubricant brand in India and contributes to over 25% of Castrol India Revenue\. As the brand custodian of Activ, I manage the product portfolio and develop and deploy best in industry communication assets and campaigns across TV, digital, on ground and trade\.

Senior Product Manager \- Truck & Industrial oils at Castrol, Sep 2016 \- Sep 2018 · 2 yrs 1 mo, Mumbai Area, India, Manage product portfolio and life cycle, pricing and new product introductions\. Develop and deploy key strategic initiatives to grow the truck oil and industrial segments for the company\. Develop offers to differentiate products and create value for customers and the company\. Achievements Did a gap assessment and introduced products and SKUs within the engine oil segment to add 4Ml in 2018\. Refreshed the entire offering of driveline oils and greases to add 1Ml in 2018\. Both these initiatives led to a 2% market share increase for Castrol Commercial Vehicle oils\. Did a portfolio review of industrial oils to unlock growth opportunity of 3Ml in the next 5 years\. Deployed offers to win in wind aftermarket segment leading to an increase in 15% market share\.

Asst\. Manager \(Marketing\), MAK Lubricants \- Industrial at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Jun 2010 \- Mar 2012 · 1 yr 10 mos, Pune/Pimpri\-Chinchwad Area, Handled Key Account Management of Tata Motors, Atlas Copco, Thermax and Thyssen Krupp Inds\. Responsible for P&L, maintaining a profitable product mix, managing the sales cycle including customer acquisition, credit assessment, logistics, ensuring after\-market tie\-ups and product development by coordinating between multiple teams\. Achievements Grew the product portfolio to increase sales by 13% at Atlas Copco and Tata Motors by introducing 5 new products by conducting trials and achieving buy in from multiple stakeholders including international product approval teams\. Developed EPC industry as a new focus area for BPCL in the Lubricants business by gathering business worth $1 million in Pune Territory alone in 2011\. Accounts acquired include Thermax and Thyssen Krupp Inds\.

Executive \(Marketing\), MAK Lubricants \- Reseller at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Jun 2008 \- Jun 2010 · 2 yrs 1 mo, Pune Area, India, Led a team of 3 sales assistants and over 290 channel partners and handled the reseller channel across six districts of Maharashtra with accountability for sales cycle, distribution and marketing with responsibility for complete P&L\. Achievements Reversed degrowth and achieved impressive revenue growth by \- Reorganizing and refocusing the channel partners based on product and customers instead of historical volumes\. \- Motivating the channel partners through a revamped incentive scheme and by leveraging the informal channel networks\. Developed and launched MAK Horticultural Mineral Oil in western Maharashtra which has a projected potential of 2\.5TMT/ yr\.

Management Trainee, Supply Chain Management Division \(BaseOil\) at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Aug 2007 \- Jun 2008 · 11 mos, Mumbai Area, India, Part of a two member team that was responsible for base oil SCM including procurement, trading and value addition\. Achievements Carried out a project to find out alternate uses of base oils to ensure evacuation and add value which resulted in the launch of Light Liquid Paraffin that created new business opportunity with increased margin\. Carried out an excise reconciliation exercise that led to significant recoveries from post facto sales and instituted billing practices which ensured such under recoveries would not be encountered in future\.

## Education

Post Graduate Program in Management, Strategy&Leadership, Marketing, Indian School of Business

Bachelor of Technology \(B\.Tech\.\), Mechanical Engineering, Government Engineering College, Trichur, Kerala

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/cherian-john)

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