Hindustan Unilever, the country’s largest consumer goods company, announced the appointment of Vipul Mathur as executive director, personal care and member of the management committee, effective June 1.
He will succeed Madhusudhan Rao, who had been overseeing the business on an interim basis following the departure of Karthik Chandrasekhar. Chandrasekhar was previously appointed to the position of ED, personal care, before resigning in February to pursue external opportunities.
Mathur, 45, who joined HUL as a management trainee in 2003, currently serves as the head of growth and transformation for South Asia at Unilever.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta, Mathur has worked in customer development and marketing, across home care, personal care and nutrition over the last two decades, the company said.
Rohit Jawa, CEO and managing director, HUL, said, “Vipul is an accomplished marketeer and a business leader, known for his collaborative leadership style. He has been working closely with me to shape the long-term business strategy for HUL.”
The appointment of Mathur will complete the top leadership team at HUL which includes Jawa, CFO Ritesh Tiwari, ED, legal & corporate affairs Dev Bajpai, ED, human resources Anuradha Razdan, ED, home care, Srinandan Sundaram, ED, beauty & wellbeing, Harman Dhillon, ED, foods & refreshment, Shiva Krishnamurthy, ED, R&D, Vibhav Sanzgiri, ED, customer development, Kedar Lele, ED, supply chain, Yogesh Kumar Mishra and a new chief digital officer, Arun Neelakantan.
HUL has been realigning portfolios in line with the structure that prevails globally with parent Unilever. Beauty and personal care, for instance, was split into beauty & wellbeing and personal care in December last year to better-manage two different businesses and drive growth.
At the same time, the position of a chief digital officer was created to beef up the firm’s digital capabilities and be future-ready.
Mathur’s all-around understanding of HUL’s businesses, said industry sources, is expected to help the firm improve performance in personal care, which a 10% sales decline in the March quarter due to price cuts in soaps and a drop in volumes in the mass and popular soap segments.
In his previous role, as vice president for modern trade and e-commerce, Mathur strengthened the company’s omnichannel strategy and drove portfolio transformation for HUL in high-growth emerging channels, the firm said.