Something unusual is happening in the corner offices of India’s consumer-goods companies. In barely a year, Hindustan Unilever, Nestlé India, Britannia, Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL), Dabur, DMart, and Wipro Consumer have changed leaders or announced successors. Colgate-Palmolive India has now joined the list, with Prabha Narasimhan moving to an Asia-Pacific role and former Colgate executive Manish Anandani returning as managing director and chief executive. The churn does not necessarily imply a crisis at every company. But its scale suggests that boards are rethinking the leadership skills required for a consumer market being reshaped faster than many incumbents expected.
The departures are not all of a piece. Narasimhan’s move is a conventional multinational rotation: an elevation within the parent organisation, accompanied by an internal-style succession. Her predecessor, Ram Raghavan, similarly moved to a global role in 2022. Wipro Consumer’s transition, announced well in advance of the incumbent’s retirement, also represents orderly succession. Contrast this with Sudhir Sitapati’s abrupt resignation from GCPL, days after shareholders approved his reappointment for another five years. Global CFO Aasif Malbari was immediately elevated to the top job, while the company indicated that its leadership would eventually be divided between India and international businesses. At Britannia, the board waived Varun Berry’s notice period and relieved him immediately, although he had offered to help with the transition. These exits inevitably raise questions that routine rotations do not.
What unites the changes is the difficult terrain confronting consumer companies. Urban demand has been weak, input costs unpredictable, and post-pandemic volume growth uneven. Quick commerce is altering distribution, pricing, and promotional strategies, while digital-first brands are attacking niches that established companies once dominated. Premiumisation remains attractive, but it becomes harder when household budgets are stretched. Boards consequently want quicker delivery on volumes, digital marketing, online sales, and portfolio renovation. Six of the 10 consumer-sector leaders appointed over the past year have held marketing roles, an indication that boards increasingly see brand reinvention and consumer insight — not merely cost control — as the route back to growth.
That demand is understandable, but it also increases the temptation to treat leadership change as a substitute for the harder work of aligning investment, incentives, and organisational capabilities behind a coherent long-term strategy that survives the next quarterly disappointment or two. There is, however, a danger in confusing urgency with impatience. Transforming a large consumer business with entrenched brands and distribution systems takes time. CEOs cannot be expected to produce structural change quarter by quarter while simultaneously protecting margins and market share. The professional-manager model, especially in promoter-led businesses, works only when authority is clear, the mandate is stable, and the board allows sufficient runway. If strategy, control, and accountability become blurred, even accomplished executives will struggle.
Abrupt exits also impose a governance obligation. When shareholders approve a five-year reappointment only days before the incumbent leaves, they are entitled to ask what changed and when the board knew it. If an exit was foreseeable, disclosure was inadequate; if it was not, succession planning was. Markets can live with leadership changes, but they dislike unexplained discontinuity. India’s consumer giants possess trusted brands and formidable distribution networks; a change at the top will not undo those strengths. Yet shorter strategy cycles cannot be allowed to produce perpetually shorter CEO tenures. In a volatile market, boards need both urgency and patience — and credible succession plans before the revolving door begins to spin.