Eastern ropes in ex-Google,PepsiCo execs to spruce up top deck

Eastern Condiments, which has interests in spices, condiments, ready-to-eat food category among others, has roped in former Google and PepsiCo executives to strengthen its top managerial deck.
Manoj Varghese, the first manager hire in India by Internet giant Google, has joined Eastern as its top mentor; while Ashwani Kumar Verma, a former PepsiCo executive, has joined the company and will look after its operational side, a company press release said.
Manoj, as the Head of HR helped Google India to become arguably one of the best companies to work for, later moved to Facebook as its India's Director Operations. He is an engineering graduate from REC Calicut, and has done his post-graduation in management from XLRI.

Firoz Meeran, Managing Director, Eastern Condiments, said "as we transition into a high performance organisation it is expected that Manoj with his rich experiences and wisdom will help guide and handhold our youthful leadership team to greater heights".
He said Ashwani is tasked with creation of an Operations Excellence Council comprising leaders representing Production, Quality, Engineering and Projects with leaders from Supply Chain, Order Fulfilment, Finance and Technology functions.
As the product portfolio and supplier base diversifies, Ashwani, an engineering graduate from IIT Roorkee, will conceptualise, create and run the supplier quality programme which will be a benchmark in the food industry.

"Towards fulfilling Eastern's vision of zero error from farm to fork, Ashwani will conceptualise, execute and run an industry benchmark global first quality model," Firoz Meeran said.
Eastern is a well-diversified group with over 100 product offerings in its portfolio. The company has recently crossed the milestone of Rs 800 crore in turnover and is expected to grow in double digits in the fast growing processed food market.
It has facilities in Adimaly, Theni, Kothamangalam, Guntoor, Ghaziabad, Rasayani, Ras al kaima and Dubai and exports its products to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore and has been the largest Exports award winner from Spices Board for the past 15 years.