Hll Turns Sourcing Base For Top Unilever Posts
Apart from the well-known Dr Ashok Ganguly, research director at Unilever headquarters in London, as many as four key Unilever group companies in different countries are headed by Indian managers, formerly of Hindustan Lever. They are: V Kasturirangan, chairman, Unilever Philippines, Nihal Kaviratne, chairman, Unilever Argentina and Anand Bhatia, chairman, Unilever Caribbean, and R B Saldhana, chairman, Unilever, Peru.
Indian managers are also responsible for several regional positions like personal products, soaps and detergents, finance and beverages. Recently, four managers, Harish Manwani, M S Banga, S Khosla, and D Sundaram were put in charge of their respective divisions for the entire region of Central Asia and Middle-East, of which India is a part.
While Manwani will look after personal products for the region, Banga will be responsible for soaps and detergents, S Khosla tea and beverages and D Sundaram, finance.
Lever sources say Indian personnel have always been highly regarded for their skills and managerial abilities. As more and more quality managers join the company, the trend will grow, they add.
While three Indians are chairman of Unilever operations in key countries like the Philippines, Argentina and the entire Caribbean, Indians also head important departments in other countries. In Australia, an Indian manager, Atul Malhotra heads Rexona Company, which is a part of Unilever. Rexona Company manufactures toilet products.
Another example is Brazil. Three departments of sales, finance and technical are headed by Indians. Sales is headed by R K Aneja, P Aasirvatham looks after finance and Gurdeep Singh is the technical director.
In China, A Choudhari heads sales and distribution and Anoop Gupta looks after tea and beverages. A request for nominating more senior managers to China has just been received by Hindustan Lever.
Ditto with Egypt. Sales is headed by Dinkar Sharma, while A A Baig is chief of human resource development. Indians are also present in fair strength in Unilever headquarters in UK and The Netherlands.
While Naren Nanda is deputy to the category director of home products, Hrishi Bhattacharya, based in the Netherlands is second-in-command to Jan Peelan, the foods director.