Bio

Vijay Chari is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal Private Equity Performance Improvement practice in Melbourne. He brings more than 10 years of experience in large-scale performance improvement programs, corporate strategy and mergers and acquisition, as both an advisor and a corporate practitioner. Mr. Chari has supported clients across multiple ownership structures (listed, family-owned, franchise, and PE-backed) each with distinct financial and operational expectations for program delivery. He has worked in a range of industries, with a focus on consumer and retail. His recent experience includes launching a third-party e-commerce fulfilment service offering for a marketplace operator, rolling out a digitised store operating model to drive a 5+% increase in sales for an omnichannel retailer, optimising the store and distribution centre network of a discount department retailer resulting in EBITDA uplift of $40+ million and driving multiple category and store clustering strategies for large retailers. Mr. Chari also has deal-related experience, including supporting the development of the business case, transitional service agreements and implementation plan for the $10 billion demerger of an Australian retail conglomerate, developing a business plan for a fuel and convenience retailer ahead of a successful trade sale, and handling pre-deal diligence for a retailer’s acquisition of a stake in a DTC subscription meal-kit company. Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Chari was the Head of Group Strategy for Kmart Group (a division of Wesfarmers Group), where he led the discovery and commercial assessment of strategic opportunities across new markets and capabilities, enterprise-wide corporate planning and investor relations. Previously, Mr. Chari worked at BCG, serving clients in the U.S. and Australia and operating as a leader within the Consumer & Retail and Corporate Finance & Strategy practices. Prior to this, he worked at UBS investment bank serving global natural resources clients. Mr. Chari earned bachelor’s degrees in commerce and economics from Monash University.