Team BFF: Meet the trailblazers powering Myntra’s Big Fashion Festival

Myntra’s Big Fashion Festival (BFF), the annual festive extravaganza, has been providing an unparalleled festive shopping experience to millions of fashion-forward shoppers across the country showcasing an array of compelling offerings. The ongoing BFF is buzzing with excitement offering more than 23 lakh styles from over 6,000 leading domestic and international brands, spanning across fashion and beauty to lifestyle.

What truly makes BFF a mega success is the dedication, passion, and collaboration of diverse teams within Myntra. Have you ever wondered about the folks behind the scenes who make this festive extravaganza possible? Pulling off a large-scale event requires a lot of planning, collaboration and execution. Let's dive into the story of four remarkable women trail blazers at Myntra who are turning the ongoing edition of BFF into a mega success, with their grit, determination and keen understanding of what the consumer wants!

Sakshi Yadav, Associate Director, Events & CRM

Sakshi Yadav’s role involves spearheading the end-to-end strategy, planning, and execution of all the big-ticket events, including Myntra’s marquee events like BFF and EORS.

Talking about BFF, Yadav says, " It is truly a festival for us at Myntra. The planning begins about three-four months before the actual event. We conceptualise and cohesively work on the event structure, on how best to create a frenzy among our shoppers, drive key constructs, and ensure a strong selection showcase in terms of ‘Showstoppers’ and ‘Specials’, and more,” she says.

Yadav works with various key cross-functional teams, including Revenue Planning, Marketing, PR, Product & Technology, Storefront, CRM, Category, Design, Analytics, Supply Chain, Business Finance, and Customer Experience, to ensure that all business objectives are aligned with and delivered across multiple teams.

“This BFF, my endeavour has been to bring freshness to customer offerings. The event embarks the onset of the festive shopping in a big way. The Events team, which is one of the backbones for BFF drives thorough readiness checks across each workstream to ensure strong build-up for the event, creative and storefront readiness and strong buzz creation. Our deep commitment to customers and the unbridled excitement of pulling off large-scale events year after year keep us motivated,” she says.

Stating that the festive period is demanding in all aspects, Yadav says family support and regular exercise keep her on the go.

Elizabeth Victor, Director, Sports and Footwear

As Director of Sports and Footwear at Myntra, Elizabeth Victor, and her team are responsible for ensuring that the customers get their hands on the most trendy and unique collections across unmatched offers. She collaborates with popular homegrown and international brands and cross-functional teams to make your shopping experience seamless.

“BFF is an emotional rollercoaster for us at Myntra. When the clock strikes midnight, and we see shoppers trickling in from nooks and corners of the country, with all eyes on our performance dashboards, it’s the most satisfying moment for us at Myntra! For the ongoing edition of BFF, we have brought exciting offers on footwear and have gone live with over 1.5 lakh domestic and international brands. There is something for everyone who loves sneakers and shoes. We are determined to go harder and bigger with each edition of BFF, making sure our shoppers have nothing but the best to choose from.”

Balancing work and personal life during the BFF season can be challenging, especially for working mothers. Victor says her family's unwavering support and some self-care time help her maintain that fine balance. Exercise, quick timeouts, and well-deserved recharge leaves after the festive season keep her going.

Kejal Parekh, Associate Director, Brand Marketing

With brand-marketing being front and center to ensure visibility across important touchpoints among consumers, Kejal Parekh and her team are responsible for BFF’s overall marketing campaigns, from celebrity endorsements and asset creation to communication, content, and media choices. They collaborate with multiple stakeholders across the board, ensuring synergy in the campaign's communication. She and her team ensure that the campaign takes off smoothly by working closely with different teams to create a huge buzz and making sure that exciting constructs and rewards add sparkle to Myntra’s BFF offerings.

“Working during BFF can be dynamic and challenging, but it's also a time when the entire Myntra team across the board comes together to work coherently, keeping the customer at the centre of everything. The camaraderie and energy are infectious.” she says.

Vindhya Priya Shanmugham, Director of Engineering, Head of Search & Payments, Storefront Charters

One of Myntra’s leading tech wizards and Director of Engineering, Vindhya, ensures that every checkout experience is top-notch and memorable. An avid tech enthusiast who's been at the forefront of driving industry-first innovations at Myntra such as MyFashionGPT, Vernacular Search, Co-Branded Cards with Kotak, Deferred Online Payments, and more, she collaborates with various teams to handle the enormous traffic during BFF.

Shanmugham works with various teams, including Business, Product, Analytics, Data Science, UI/UX, and Platforms, to ensure the robust infrastructure capable of handling the surge in traffic during BFF is in place and seamlessly offers a differentiated user experience year after year with each passing edition.

The highlight of BFF for her is the “palpable energy across the floors”. “It's not just about work; it's about celebrating the festive season with our Myntra family. We follow the ‘One Team’ mantra – reflecting Myntra's MAGIC values – to pull off a landmark event like BFF. This year, our app offers an even better user experience than the previous edition” she says.

And how does she juggle life outside work during this time?

Shanmugham’s formula for balance involves early mornings, meditation, exercise, and proactive planning. This helps her manage her professional and personal life effectively.

The entire Myntra team, spanning categories, tech, operations, revenue, and marketing and more, are geared up to deliver an outstanding consumer experience and make this edition even bigger, memorable and enjoyable than the previous edition.

Myntra's Big Fashion Festival isn't just its commitment to serve the best of fashion, beauty and lifestyle needs to its consumers, it's also about Myntraites coming together, problem solving and defying the odds together and delivering the best to you through every single edition. At the forefront of this are strong leaders like Sakshi, Elizabeth, Kejal and Vindhya, and many more who are celebrated for their promise of recreating the MAGIC every year as India waits for its much-loved festive shopping bonanza every year.