Nitin Paranjpe is Unilever chief people officer for business transformation

Consumer goods company plans a new organisation model that will reduce senior management roles by around 15%

Nitin Paranjpe, Unilever's chief operating officer, will assume the role of chief transformation and chief people’s officer from April 1 to lead business transformation and head HR function, the company said in its release.

At the consumer goods company’s Indian business, Sanjiv Mehta will continue as Hindustan Unilever (HUL) chairman and managing director.

The changes at Unilever are part of a proposed new organisation model that will reduce senior management roles by around 15 per cent and junior management ones by 5 per cent—altogether resulting in 1,500 job cuts. The company said it does not expect an impact on factory teams by these changes

The company said it will move away from its current matrix structure and will be organised around five distinct business groups: beauty & wellbeing, personal care, home care, nutrition, and ice cream. “Each business group will be fully responsible and accountable for their strategy, growth, and profit delivery globally,” the release said.

A HUL’s spokesperson, in an email statement to Business Standard, said Unilever focuses on growth within its existing business. “The new organisation structure announced by Unilever is intended to enhance business performance. This operating model will drive greater agility, improve category focus and strengthen accountability,” it said.

“We have a mutually beneficial and interdependent relationship with Unilever Group, bringing the best of trends, innovations and capabilities to the Indian market. We will continue to leverage this organisation structure to serve our consumers and customers even better. Changes, if any, will be announced in due course.”

Alan Jope, chief executive officer at Unilever, said in a global press release, “Our new organisational model has been developed over the last year and is designed to continue the step-up we are seeing in the performance of our business. Moving to five category-focused business groups will enable us to be more responsive to consumer and channel trends, with crystal-clear accountability for delivery.”

“All costs related to setting up the new organisation will be managed within existing restructuring investment plans,” Unilever said.