Over the last 25 years, Manoj Matthai has been a highly successful strategist if you count the exponential fast business growth he has brought into almost all his projects for client businesses through his Strategy Solutions.

He is an expert in dealing with the challenges of businesses operating in Asian markets where unique and highly differentiated neighbourhood markets blend to form the market of a country.

Manoj Matthai is among the rare breed of the global strategy community that blends strategy formulation and strategy implementation simultaneously with ease. He is a pioneer in the management consulting industry in holding the post of the Principal Strategist along with the designation of the Chief Creative Officer. He is adept at blending logical reasoning and creative fantasy. He is good at combining the relevance of growing today’s revenues engaging the disruptions of market transitions to define and design a new future for the business.

He is industry agnostic as he believes Strategy Consulting has to be focused on human mindsets rather than limiting it with industry boundaries.

India’s first coloured mobile

Manoj Matthai started his career over a quarter of a century ago by launching India’s first coloured mobile handsets for the French telecom giant Alcatel with the campaign ‘Black is Boring’ in the final years of the 20th century. This probably became an inspiration and a catalyst for the dominance of casual fashion culture over the formal fashion culture in India. He also launched the ‘Bacardi Blast’ in India along with Channel [V] in Bangalore as a prelude to the turn of the new century in the midst of the global Y2K challenge.

God’s own country emerges on the world stage on the foundation of strong local brands

After he founded Breakthrough Brand & Business Consulting in 1998, Manoj Matthai’s strategies were instrumental in successfully launching almost all the top private resorts in all the tourist destinations in Kerala, which also became a reason for Kerala as a state to be positioned as the most sought-after tourist destination in this part of the world. He launched international brands like Le Meridien, Hilton, Ginger, Volkswagen, etc. in Kerala. His corporate communications also helped in selling Kovalam Hotels and the erstwhile Travancore Kingdom’s Halcyon Castle in the privatising efforts of the landmark destination hotel of the Kerala Government. Breakthrough Brand & Business Consulting also became one of the two firms in India that worked on the strategy implementation programme for rebranding Taj into Vivanta by Taj.

The largest jewellery in India

His strategy that positioned one of the oldest jewellers in India with the idea ‘The Largest Jewellery Store in India is now at Trivandrum’ ensured that this jewellery showroom also became the largest-selling single showroom in the country in the first 12 months of its launch. This was a landmark achievement for a store outside the Indian metros.

Pioneering change in Indian family outlook – India’s new lifestyle movement

Manoj Matthai’s strategy pivoted the outlook of the real-estate industry in south India to align with the social change happening with the new outlook of the Indian family system. With the joint family system in the villages opening up for a nuclear family system, he pioneered the thought of not selling apartments as dwelling places or as a product but as a harbinger of the new modern lifestyle. He shifted the spotlight on to the lady of the house from the head of the family. His strategic thought revolved around the more powerful modern homemaker who was willing and capable of owning greater responsibilities of the family with the line that expressed the strategic essence in ‘My Home. My life.’ This unique and relevant thinking of the time to launch a new brand helped the builder rise up to be the leading builder in the industry. It heralded India’s new lifestyle movement.

Changing the world with good neighbourhoods – ‘Happiness is Supreme’

In the second decade of the 21st century, he started believing in the idea that good neighbourhoods have the power to change the world for the better. With this vision in mind, Manoj Matthai founded India’s first neighbourhood portal yentha.com just before the smart phones were introduced into the world. In the same neighbourhood perspective, he consolidated Supreme Group under a new corporate identity as ‘Supreme Food Company’. After the consolidation and the ensuing exponential growth, the essence of its strategy was rolled out in the strategic line ‘Happiness is Supreme’ in its third phase with the launch of two new categories in food – The Food Market and also The Food Destination.

The legend of Indian cinema’s first & India’s first ad-less ads

In 2021, Manoj Matthai was instrumental in roping in the legend of Indian cinema, Sri. Amitabh Bachchan to endorse a footwear brand for the first time in his long and legendary career spanning over 50 years. Matthai’s strategy was probably the first in India to use the legend as a brand ambassador for four brands strategically in a single calendar year. Sri. Amitabh Bachchan with the first campaign ‘Celebrate Hard Work’ during the Covid times inspired India to come out of the troubled times by working hard. There could be none more appropriate and believable than the legend in Indian cinema who could inspire India to work hard, with a 50-year-long career and a huge body of work behind him. Indian media coined a new reference for this unique Bachchan campaign that told his life’s story springled with the VKC Pride brand characteristics – the media dubbed it as India’s first ‘Ad-less Ad’ in their press coverage.

India’s VKC

His strategy in repositioning VKC as a corporate house with a new thinking helped VKC become the fastest growing corporate house in the footwear industry in India. In 2023, as a part of the strategy, he repositioned VKC as ‘India’s VKC’ in the fourth phase of the strategy roll out. As a part of the VKC strategy, he also launched ‘India’s First Sporty Fashion Movement’ for Debongo. With Ja.May.Ka, he also introduced ‘Fun Wear’ as a new category in footwear. He also introduced the new retail channel for VKC through ‘My VKC’ stores in Chennai in 2023.

Transforming an 84-year-old family business

In 2024, he pioneered an innovative strategy to transform an 84-year-old family business in food operated by the third generation into a ‘Corporate House with a focus on Modern Lifestyle’ with ten highly individualistic business verticals. As an extension of celebrating this lifestyle corporate house, Manoj Matthai’s strategy is trying to establish and highlight the spicy Travancore Cuisine among the culinary delights on the world stage using the ‘Simply Goood’ strategic restaurant idea and the ‘Once Upon Time…’ long lost and found delicacy concepts including an over 200-year-old Travancore Pakka Biriyani recipe. He also pioneered a new thinking in infrastructure and design christened as ‘Progressive Lifestyle’ for this corporate house.

India’s first crowd-sourced book & The first destination restaurant

In April 2024, he strategized to launch the first destination restaurant concept in Kerala by repositioning a 22-year-old restaurant. The ‘Quilon Biryani’ was introduced as a part of the strategy. The idea of India’s first crowd-sourced book about a destination was created as an extension and element of the same strategy. This book named ‘The Story of Kollam’ will be edited by popular writers and journalists from the region. This year his ‘Never Compromise’ strategic idea to transform a five-star restaurant into a high-street model grew into the fourth outlet. It is probably the only restaurant brand in the country that grew into 3 cities in a state in this segment in the shortest possible period.

Multiplying Business Successes, Happiness and Peace

Manoj Matthai as a strategist is focused on multiplying the value of his client business many times over by introducing a new energy for exponential fast growth. He is probably the only Principal Strategist in the consulting industry worldwide who holds and combines two contrarian designations of the Strategist and the Chief Creative Officer. He believes in the power of emotions, feelings and intangibles, especially in celebrating the fundamentals of creation – Energy and Value.

Manoj Matthai is an ardent believer in the power of the neighbourhoods and the neighbourhood businesses to transform the world into a beautiful place for humanity and all the living beings. Neighbourhood businesses creates happy neighbourhoods if it creates happy jobs in the neighbourhoods. A stable job is the backbone of a happy family which in turn creates a happy society. Matthai evangelises that “everyone in the neighbourhood need to strive to create a good environment to establish highly successful and good neighbourhood businesses and help them create more stable jobs in the neighbourhoods”. In the Covid times, he pioneered the ‘ShopLocal’ programme along with his client VKC and helped over 200,000 small retailers across the country in the Indian neighbourhoods to tide over the pandemic period when online shopping was at its peak in India. The campaign for his ‘ShopLocal’ programme was led by Sri. Amitabh Bachchan, the legend of Indian cinema. He believes that ‘Neighbourhood Happiness’ is the most essential ingredient required to create peace in the world, now and forever.