HUL’s Sudhir Sitapati steps down

Sudhir Sitapati—who spent over two decades at fast moving consumer goods company Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL)—is stepping down from the role of executive director of the company’s foods and refreshment business to pursue an external opportunity, the company said in a statement Monday.
Srinandan Sundaram, currently executive director, customer development is set to succeed Sitapati with effect from 1 July 2021.
Sitapati joined Hindustan Unilever as a management trainee in 1999 and managed roles across sales and marketing. He was appointed executive director, foods and refreshment in July 2018. Prior to this, he was regional category vice president, refreshment (South Asia & Africa), Unilever. Sitapati is an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad.
During his tenure he played a leading role in several marquee deals for the company, including the mega merger of GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Limited (GSKCH) with HUL. The Rs31,700 crore deal, among the largest in the FMCG sector in recent times, was completed in April 2020 boosting the company’s presence within the foods business.
For the year ended 31 March—foods and refreshment reported a segment revenue of Rs13,204 crore. Within foods and refreshment—the company has presence in categories like jams, ketchup, tea, mayonnaise, ice-cream, health food drinks etc.
“As executive director, foods and refreshment, Sudhir led the transformation of Tea into a purpose-led category that regained market leadership and gained shares for the last three years. During his tenure, Sudhir led the merger of Adityaa Milk and more recently, GSK Consumer Healthcare business into HUL, bringing iconic brands like Horlicks and Boost into the Unilever family. The Unilever Food Solutions business, under his leadership, was rewired and transformed into a growth engine for the company,” the company added.
He is also author of the 2019 book “The CEO Factory: Management Lessons from Hindustan Unilever”.
Sundaram too has spent over two decades at HUL and has a strong track record in both customer development and marketing. He joined HUL as a management trainee in 1999 after completing his MBA from IIM, Kolkata.
Sundaram was responsible for steering the launch of the company’s business-to-business ordering app, Shikhar, for retailers. In the last fiscal year, the company added 350,000 Shikhar outlets to its fold. Total number of outlets that order via Shikhar crossed 5 lakh, HUL’s top management said in its recent earnings call.
“In his current role, Srinandan has been at the forefront of bringing in leading-edge technology and transforming the Company’s CD (customer development) organisation into a high tech – high touch team. The Shikhar app, launched under his leadership, has lent a competitive edge to the business, especially during the pandemic and is the largest eB2B app in India today,” the company said.
“I would like to thank Sudhir for his immense contributions to the Company over the last two decades. We cherish iconic ad campaigns like Daag Acche Hain and Swad Apnepan Ka that were created under his leadership. He played a pivotal role in the merger of GSK CH into HUL. I wish him the very best as he embarks on a new chapter in his career. I am delighted with the appointment of Srinandan as head of Foods and Refreshment and I’m certain that he will take the business to the next level of performance,” said Sanjiv Mehta, chairman and managing director, HUL.

Source : livemint