Anuradha Razdan, executive diirector – HR, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) and CHRO, Unilever South Asia, had highlighted the one fundamental quality of Unileverites that distinguished them from the rest, and fueled their growth. She attributed it to the mindset of ‘leaders building leaders’, that bound them together, and helped HUL churn leader after leader. Shiva Krishnamurthy, Harman Dhillon, Arun Neelakantan and Vipul Mathur joined HUL’s top table – the management committee, after a recent rejig of leadership. Take a look at who they are.
Shiva Krishnamurthy
Shiva Krishnamurthy is the executive director of foods and refreshment at Hindustan Unilever Limited. Before this, he was the vice president of foods and Beverages for Unilever South Asia. Under Krishnamurthy’s tenure during the last 10 years, HUL became the market leader in Tea in India. HUL also won the prestigious Glass Grand Prix at Cannes for the Brooke Bond Red Label 6-Pack Band – India’s first transgender band.
Several other brand campaigns under Krishnmurthy’s leadership have been recognised with prestigious industry awards in India. Shiva’s diverse expertise spans brand crafting, mix design, and end-to-end P&L leadership. His innovative approach has led to significant advancements in HUL’s core portfolio, including Lifebuoy and Lux. Notably, he spearheaded the innovation for the Radiant brand in the Home Care category for Southeast Asia, based in Singapore. Krishnamurthy is an alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur. He joined HUL in 2000 after a brief stint with PepsiCo and worked as an area sales manager with HUL’s Customer Development team. A die-hard fan of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, Krishnamurthy ran a Amitabh Bachchan fan club while pursuing his MBA.
Harman Dhillon
Harman Dhillon is the executive director of Hindustan Unilever Limited’s Beauty and Wellbeing division and the General Manager of Unilever’s Beauty and Wellbeing division in South Asia.
Dhillon is a well-rounded Business leader and marketer with strengths in strategic thinking, consumer insights, brand crafting, P&L management, and leading diverse teams. She has a successful track record of launching and growing large brands in the beauty and personal care business with assignments of increasing responsibility covering South Asia, North America and Europe.
Prior to this, as Skin Care Head, she led HUL’s premiumisation portfolio and demonstrated thought leadership for HUL in the FMCG beauty segment. She has also led the transformation of the Skin Care business, with a comprehensive revamp of brands such as Lakmé.
Previously as VP Hair Care, Dhillon built deep expertise in the Hair Care segment; she launched Dove hair and TRESemmé in India and led iconic marketing campaigns such as Dove ‘Stop the Beauty Test’ and Clinic Plus ‘Meri Beti Strong.’ In 2015, she was responsible for the global TRESemmé business for two years as Global Brand Director based in London.
She joined HUL in 2006 after a stint with Tata Administrative Services. About Dove’s ‘Stop the Beauty Test’ campaign that was rolled out in 2022 on the occasion of International Daughters Day, Dhillon had told Storyboard18, “The Indian woman has gone through a complete metamorphosis in the recent time, especially when it comes to her portrayal in advertising and media. We’ve come a long way from women being conditioned to believing their self-worth is dictated by the perception of others, to now where they are seen taking charge and having a voice of their own.”
Arun Neelakantan
Arun Neelakantan was appointed as the chief digital officer at HUL, in January 2024. In his previous role, he has been responsible for HUL’s digital transformation and growth agenda in South Asia. He has played a key role in anchoring the identification, tapping of growth opportunities, developing new digital capabilities, and driving HUL’s digital agenda across the value chain.
Under his leadership, HUL has accelerated its journey towards an intelligent enterprise by consolidating capabilities, unlocking cross-functional ecosystems, and enhancing the digital quotient of people. In parallel, he has also driven the growth agenda for HUL and Unilever, South Asia by identifying granular opportunities across business fundamentals, specifically in emerging channels and businesses, along with a holistic approach towards media, marketing, and commerce.
Before this, he had various roles in Customer Development and Marketing across General Trade, Modern Trade, Customer Marketing and Brands. As Regional Manager for HUL’s South Branch, he led a series of initiatives to make Customer Development function Future Fit and led the region to sustainable, consistent, and market-beating growth. Arun is an alumnus of the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad and joined HUL in 2006.
On HUL’s digital transformation journey, Neelakantan had said, “HUL started on the digital transformation journey several years back. We first embarked on digital experimentation with Livewire, which addressed a fundamental problem of providing real-time, joined-up, granular data to enable better decision-making. Over the years, we consolidated the experiments under the ‘Re-imagine HUL’ umbrella and set up the ‘HUL Digital Council’ that has driven the transformation agenda across the business.” He further added, “Re-imagine HUL anchors on a connected ecosystem across consumers, customers and operations enabled by the data / technology / analytics at its core. It promotes the development of modular inter-connected capabilities that allow us to create a frictionless solution for superior experience while improving agility and responsiveness across the business.”
Vipul Mathur
On June 1, 2024, Vipul Mathur will join the HUL Management Committee as executive director, personal care. Vipul, currently Head of Growth and Transformation, joined HUL in 2003 as a management trainee after completing his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management – Calcutta. In a career spanning over two decades, he has worked in Customer Development and Marketing, across Home Care, Personal Care and Nutrition. Mathur’s stints in the Laundry business between 2012 – 2017 and subsequently in 2020-2021 were hugely successful. He led Mobile Marketing and Rural Marketing for Wheel and played a pivotal role in launching the Cannes-winning Kan Khajura Teshan (KKT), India’s first mobile-based radio platform with branded content from 10 Unilever brands.
As the Category Head, he spearheaded the portfolio transformation programme, scaled up the Liquids business and delivered competitive and profitable growth. As part of the Global Tea Leadership team between 2017-2020, Mathur worked with teams in Indonesia, UAE, UK&I and Australia, alongside South Asia, and was successful in landing new mixes in the category and delivered award winning communication campaigns on Brooke Bond. In his previous role, as Vice President for Modern Trade and eCommerce, he strengthened the company’s omnichannel strategy and drove portfolio transformation for HUL in high-growth emerging channels, by leading the relationships with customers and building internal cross-functional capabilities.
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