Ayyappan R is the Founder and CEO of FirstClub, a quality-first quick commerce platform targeting India's top 10% of households with curated, premium everyday products delivered in 30 minutes.

Ayyappan is a veteran of the Indian e-commerce landscape, having spent over a decade at Flipkart where he served as SVP and led the smartphone business, Chief Business Officer at Myntra, and CEO of Cleartrip; he also held a strategy role at ITC focused on grocery market expansion.

Ayyappan built FirstClub as the antithesis of conventional retail, championing quality and trust over mass selection and speed, drawing inspiration from Costco's membership-led curation model.

He holds an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur (Xavier School of Management) and leveraged deep operational expertise across India's largest e-commerce and consumer goods companies to launch FirstClub in 2024.

Within one year of launch, FirstClub crossed 1 million orders and reached a $50 million annualized GMV run rate, scaling to 24 dark stores across Bengaluru and Hyderabad while raising $86 million in total funding.