Sunil D Souza, Managing Director, Tata Consumer Products Ltd

Sunil D_Souza, Head of India and South Asia Operations, Whirlpool

As Managing Director of the publicly listed entity in India, I am responsible for the entire operations, including 3 manufacturing locations and 50 offices, employing about 2700 full time personnel in the India business.

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Ashutosh Garg engages in an insightful conversation with Sunil Dzouza, the Managing Director and CEO of Tata Consumer Products Pvt Ltd. An alumnus of IIM Calcutta turned a highly successful corporate leader reminisces about his experience working with MNCs like PepsiCo, Whirlpool, etc.

Sunil analyzes the one mistake he made in his career that he would change if he could go back in time- a necessary piece of advice for every aspiring corporate leader.

The corporate veteran explains what goes into building a successful brand, how a brand succeeds in the digital age, the influence of e-commerce in business, and the significance of data analytics.

“You’ll get somewhere doing execution and not a strategy. You’ll get nowhere doing strategy and not execution.” – Sunil Dsouza

You can’t miss this episode if you are looking forward to climbing up the corporate ladder.

Managing Director, Whirlpool India : India/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka/Pakistan/Nepal/Bhutan ( June ’15 to current ) : As Managing Director of the publicly listed entity in India, I am responsible for the entire operations, including 3 manufacturing locations and 50 offices, employing about 2700 full time personnel in the India business. We also operate global back offices in technology & finance, which employ about 1000 personnel. India is already an extremely important part of Whirlpool Corporation’s global footprint with a mandate for step jumping growth. This requires strengthening and expanding the current portfolio into innovative & premium spaces; expanding the distribution footprint, also addressing ecommerce; adapting communication for the digital consumer and relooking the organization to ensure structure and talent for growth; while also ensuring high quality, tightly controlled and cost effective operations. Inorganic growth is part of the mandate, and we have acquired 49% of Elica PB, the market leader in the cooking category and are setting up JV/OEM businesses in rest of South Asia, while continuously scouting for more options to expand. As part of this role, I am also part of the Top 50 Global Executives, which defines the way ahead for the Corporation.

General Manager, VIMAPS: Viet/Cam/Mym/Laos/Mal/Sin/Indo/Bru/Mong/Pac Isles ( Apr ’13 to June ‘15 ) : The brief was to step jump the Business Unit to the fastest growing business unit within PepsiCo globally. This involved refranchising the beverage business in Indonesia, leveraging partnerships to move Indonesia into a bigger foods business, starting up beverages in Myanmar, stabilizing the new beverages JV for Vietnam, bringing the snacks business in Vietnam to profitability, continuing the portfolio expansion and profitable growth in Malaysia and Singapore while making sure that the growth momentum continued in the smaller markets of Cambodia, Laos, Brunei, Mongolia and Guam. Apart from this, I was also involved in multiple M&A plans, some of which I led, as PepsiCo sought to step jump presence in this key future growth geography. As part of this role, I was on the board of Indo Frito Lay (subsidiary of publicly listed ICBP), part of the AsiaPac Excom and of the extended Asia, Middle East and Africa Excom.