New Delhi: Sumant Sinha, chief executive officer of Aditya Birla Retail has resigned. Sinha confirmed his departure to Mint but declined to comment on his next assignment, although he said that it wasn’t in “retail”.

Sinha joined the Aditya Birla Group in 2002 and was seen as the conglomerate’s M&A specialist. He took charge of the group’s retail business last year.

The Aditya Birla Group opened its first store, branded “More” in Pune in June 2007. At the time, and subsequently, the group’s executives had said that Aditya Birla Retail would invest Rs10,000 crore in the retail business over five years, opening supermarkets and hypermarkets, both branded More, across the country. The company has around 500 supermarkets across the country currently.

In March, while opening the company’s first hypermarket in Vadodara in Gujarat, Birla told reporters that, “while our conveniently located neighbourhood supermarts all over the country provide all the daily and weekly shopping needs, our destination hypermarkets will cater to monthly and event-based shopping requirements. The More Megastore is a one-stop shop for the entire family.”

Aditya Birla Group officials were not reached for comment late Tuesday evening.

Sinha is the son of India’s former finance minister Yashwant Sinha. He studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He worked with Citicorp and with ING Barings, the latter as director for the Asian region before joining the Aditya Birla Group.