He had resigned as the CEO of Future Consumer last week and will join Walmart by second week of August.

Walmart India has roped in former CEO of Future Consumer Devendra Chawla as its Chief Operating Officer, according to a source close to the company.

“Devendra Chawla, the chief executive officer of the company has tendered his resignation from the services of the company,” Future Consumer said in a BSE filing last week.

Chawla an Harvard alumnus, has worked with Asian Paints and Coca-Cola before joining Future Group in early 2009 to develop nearly three dozen in-house brands and was earlier head of Food Bazaar.

His appointment at Walmart was announced in a town hall meeting held on Monday and he is expected to join in the second week of August. Walmart India spokesperson said Chawla will join as COO - merchandising, omni-channel, and marketing and report to India CEO Krish Iyer, as reported by Economics Times.

Walmart India owns and operates 21 best price modern wholesale stores in nine states across India. The company is seeking to leverage on Chawla’s expertise in food retail as it looks to scale up its retailer development model ‘Mera Kirana Programme’ to enable small kiranas serve their customers better, another person with knowledge of the matter said.

Morgan Stanley expects the country’s food and grocery segment to become the fastest-growing category, expanding at a compounded annual rate of 141% by 2020 and contributing $15 billion, or 12.5%, of overall retail sales. While most retailers get 55-60% of their sales from food and staples, general merchandise, personal and home products make up a bulk of their profit pool with net margins as high as 10-15% compared with food, which fetches 3-5%.