Vindico Retail 'Opens Opportunity' with 10,000 days of education

The opening of Waitrose & Partners at The Galleria Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi is the ten-thousandth time Vindico Retail has coordinated the people and processes that bring a retail brand's store into a new shopping centre.

To mark it, Vindico has given 10,000 days of schooling to children in India and launched Opening Opportunity, an initiative that gives days of education for every shop or restaurant the firm helps open.

As entrepreneurs, we understand the role business can and should play in making a positive impact, and as we have expanded internationally we have always sought to be gracious guests in the countries we operate in. Opening Opportunity puts these two values into action by becoming a business for good that gives back to the communities that host us.
Peter Row, Co-Founder, Vindico

Row adds that the next 10,000 brands will be different — in who they are, their physical formats and their commercial models — and that most will be delivered in emerging markets such as India, where the firm launches in 2020.

Morne Fourie, General Manager for Marketing at Waitrose UAE, said that Vindico, representing the landlord Gulf Related, made it easier for the Waitrose team to focus on the design and fit-out of the store by managing the complexity of opening inside a large shopping centre project. Liam Collins, Senior Project Manager at Gulf Related, who has worked with Vindico on projects in both the UK and the UAE, described that experience and expertise as crucial to a positive outcome for a mall opening.

Vindico's role covered the coordination of the store opening on behalf of Gulf Related. The store was designed and fitted out by Waitrose and its contractors.