Global
Leadership Team

Nisaba Godrej is the Executive Chairperson of Godrej Consumer Products. She has been a key architect of GCPL's strategy and transformation in the last decade.

She is also the Chairperson of Teach for India and sits on the board of Godrej Agrovet, Bharti Airtel, Mahindra and Mahindra and VIP Industries. She has a BSc degree from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Nisaba is passionate about education, the human mind, trekking and equestrian sports. She lives in Mumbai with her children Zoran and Aidan.

Sudhir Sitapati is the Managing Director and CEO of Godrej Consumer Products Limited.

Prior to this, Sudhir was the Executive Director - Foods and Refreshments at Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL). In his 22 years at HUL, he led teams across several categories and functions in India, Europe, South East Asia, and Africa to create significant value for the business. Sudhir was appointed to the HUL Management Committee as an Executive Director in 2016, making him one of its youngest ever members.

Under Sudhir’s leadership, HUL built up its Foods and Refreshments business as one of the largest in India. This included the USD 5 billion merger and integration of GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare with HUL, the largest deal of its kind in the FMCG sector in India. In his previous roles, Sudhir was instrumental in creating a world-class Tea business for HUL in India and leading HUL’s Soaps business in the country.

He is a past Co-chair of the CII National Committee of Food Processing and the FMCG Committee. He was also a member of the advisory board of Flipkart in 2015. Sudhir was awarded the ‘Young Alumni Achiever’ by his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in 2017. He is also the author of the best-selling book 'The CEO Factory: Management lessons from Hindustan Unilever'.

Sudhir has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and a B.Sc. in Math with Economics Honours from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. He is the author of the best-selling book ‘The CEO Factory: Management lessons from Hindustan Unilever’. Sudhir is married to Ketki and spends his free time trying to get his children, Sahaana and Kabir, interested in his own hobbies — tennis, Hindustani music, farming and scrabble. So far to not much avail.

Sunil Kataria is Business Head - India and SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).

Sunil joined GCPL in 2011, where he successfully led the merger of the sales and marketing organisations of GCPL and the erstwhile Godrej Sara Lee.

He has diverse work experience across the FMCG and Consumer Services sectors in Sales, Marketing and business roles, including a highly successful 12 year stint at Marico Industries. Post this, Sunil served as a Business Head in retail and telecom companies, leading large and complex business operations. Prior to joining the Godrej Group, he was Chief Operating Officer of the Idea Rajasthan Circle, where he headed business operations, was responsible for the P&L, and led a major turnaround of the Rajasthan business.

Sunil is Chairman of the Indian Society of Advertisers and closely associated with the CMO forum, FICCI FMCG Committee and Advertising Standards Council of India.

A graduate in Economics from Delhi University, he is also an MBA in Marketing from the Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad.

Sunil is a staunch practitioner of the spirit of 'Possibility Thinking' and believes that this, coupled with a passion for flawless execution, is the biggest competitive advantage in today's world. An avid reader, he writes Hindi poetry, and loves watching Hindi movies and Hollywood science fiction.

Dharnesh Gordhon is Business Head - Africa, USA & Middle East, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).

Prior to joining Godrej, South Africa born Dharnesh spent over a decade and a half with the Nestlé Group, where he held key leadership positions in the company’s Africa and South East Asian businesses. During his time with Nestle, he was President Director and Chief Executive Officer of PT Nestlé Indonesia; Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé Nigeria Plc; Chairman of the Nestlé Nigeria Trust Limited; Group Sales Director for Nestlé’s Southern African region, and a member of Nestlé’s Global Sales Leaders Council. He has also worked in the printing and textile industries, and was a high school teacher early on in his professional career.

Dharnesh has an MBA and a Bachelor’s degree in Arts (Honours). He has completed the Programme for Executive Development (PED) from IMD Lausanne and the Leadership Development Programme from London Business School, has a Diploma in Higher Education, and is a Chartered Marketer (CMSA). He is passionate about human rights, literature and music, loves riding motorcycles and experiencing different cultures. Dharnesh is married to Anita and is a doting father to their daughter, Yashmay, and son, Akhil.

Akhil Chandra is Business Head - ASEAN, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).

Akhil joined GCPL in 2017, with over two decades of rich and varied experience across FMCG and OTC categories across the UK, Southeast Asia and India, with GSK Consumer Healthcare and Reckitt Benckiser Plc.

Prior to joining GCPL, he was based in London as the Global Head for Analgesics, Cold & Flu for Reckitt Benckiser. His previous assignment was as Managing Director for Reckitt Benckiser India and prior to that, he was the Vice President & General Manager - Asia for GSK Consumer.

In his various general management and senior commercial leadership roles, Akhil successfully led diverse and cross functional teams to deliver transformational double-digit top and bottom line growth across a host of markets and categories.

Akhil has an MA in Economics and an MBA from FMS Delhi and particularly enjoys working with people and large teams. He is married to Madhulika and they have two sons, Armaan and Advait.

José Toscano is Business Head, Godrej Latin America.

He has over 20 years of experience and has worked at leading FMCG companies such as IBM, The Clorox Company, Cepas Group and General Mills. Before joining Godrej, he worked with General Mills for 10 years as Managing Director for the company’s Argentina business.

At Godrej, José has worked across the marketing and sales functions in senior leadership roles and has transformed the business by drawing the focus on consumers, brand development and company culture.

José joined Godrej Argentina as Sales Director in August 2018 and played an important role in the design of a new commercial route-to-market strategy, among other things. Since then, he has taken on higher levels of responsibility, first as Commercial Director and now as Business Head, where he has been intsrumental in building a culture of innovation, fostering international expansion and boosting process efficiency.

As Business Head, he has led the transformation of the Latin America business through the democratization of personal care consumption, delighting consumers with our range of brands.

José has a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and a Post Graduate degree in Negotiations from Austral University.

He is married to Natalia and they have two children Bianca and Benicio. José is passionate about sports, especially tennis and football, and loves travelling with his family to new places to learn about cultures.

Rahul Gama is Head - Human Resources, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).

Rahul is responsible for driving the Human Resource strategy at GCPL. Prior to this, he was the Head of Human Resources at the erstwhile Godrej Sara Lee, and before that, Head of Corporate HR at Marico Limited. He has worked across a variety of sectors, including Manufacturing, Consulting, FMCG, Services and Retail and built expertise across verticals - from handling industrial relations issues and dealing with compensation planning, to creating a talent strategy. Rahul was also instrumental in shaping the HR function for a service business, Kaya Skin Care Limited, during his stint with Marico.

A generalist in HR, Rahul holds a postgraduate degree from the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune. He lives in Mumbai with his wife and daughter, and is passionate about conservation and wildlife.

Darshan Gandhi is Global Head - Design, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).

Darshan believes in inclusive design principles; that all good design should be accessible. She joined Godrej & Boyce's Interio division in 2006, where she was a catalyst in introducing design thinking, by creating and showcasing a diverse range of products under one platform, with a unique design philosophy. This led her to work for Godrej Industries in 2008, where she was assigned to design SPACE, a prototype office to create a young work culture that inspired the exchange of ideas, innovation and change at Godrej. This was the start of design driven thinking at GCPL.

She formed the GCPLDesignLab in 2009, and was instrumental in applying design led thinking to transform brands with delightful product offerings (in a Godrej way) for a rapidly evolving Indian market. This created a great impact and value for consumers across categories, with reinvigorated brands like Expert, aer, Cinthol, Goodknight and BBLUNT. By leveraging the design tools of need based user-centric segmentation, prototyping and product mapping, Darshan led the development of a unique collaborative approach in line with GCPL’s overall objectives. Today, she and her team of highly skilled designers have extended the same approach to GCPL's brands and categories across Africa and Indonesia. The recent designification of Africa’s leading hair extensions brand, Darling, marks a milestone in GCPLDesignLab’s journey of inclusive design thinking practices as a leading in-house design studio. GCPLDesignLab was awarded ‘India's Best Design Studio Award 2017’ and ‘India’s Best Product Design Award 2019’ .

Darshan is a post graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and an alumna of the Harvard Business School’s executive education General Management Programme.

Omar Momin is Head - Mergers & Acquisitions and Business Development, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).

Omar joined the Chemicals business of Godrej Industries Limited in 2001 after graduating in Chemical Engineering from the Mumbai University Institute of Chemical Technology. He worked across different functions of the business, including Operations, Marketing and Supply Chain Management.

Post this, Omar went on to complete his Masters in Management from the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad in 2004. He rejoined the Godrej Group after his stint at ISB and worked as Executive Assistant to the Chairman, Adi Godrej, for two years.

Today, Omar is responsible for driving new vectors of growth for GCPL, including through Mergers & Acquisitions.

Omar is married to Mahnaz and they have a son, Sinaan. He enjoys travelling and music.

Anirban Banerjee is Global Head - Innovation, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).

Anirban leads the Innovation function and is responsible for growing the new products pipeline, implementing innovation processes and influencing a culture of innovation.

In his previous role as Business Head - SAARC & Global Exports, GCPL, Anirban set-up and directly supervised the Godrej subsidiary and partner operations in SAARC and was responsible for growing the complete portfolio of Godrej brands in the region. He also integrated all the Exports teams across GCPL globally under an umbrella of Global Exports, deploying a coordinated exports expansion.

Anirban has over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing and nurturing new business and product initiatives with a relentless focus on brand building and consumer centricity. Prior to working with GCPL, Anirban played a major role in setting up the luxury retail brand, Godrej Nature’s Basket. As Business Head, he successfully repositioned the retail business into an Authentic World Food Retail chain and led its initial expansion. He has also worked with Reliance Infocomm and was responsible for widespread marketing of their CDMA services in the National Capital Region. He started his career with AB Electrolux and managed the resurgence of the Kelvinator brand of refrigerators and the introduction Electrolux brand of front-load washing machines and frost-free refrigerators in India. He has been on the Executive Committee of the SAARC Chamber of Commerce & Industry and was a member of the CII Sub Committee on South Asia.

Anirban graduated from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and completed his Master’s in Business Administration from Symbiosis Centre for Management & HRD, Pune. He loves reading, travelling, exploring and adventure sports. Anirban currently lives with his wife and twin boys in Mumai.

Venkateswara Rao Yadlapalli is Head - Research & Development, Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).

Venkat joined GCPL in 2014 as a member of the R&D team, where he was responsible for leading product development across categories. Since then, he has led the R&D function for the India and SAARC business and spearheaded global product development across geographies.

Venkat believes that developing ‘disruptive innovations’ is a way of life at GCPL. He has been instrumental in applying this thinking to create some of our biggest innovations, including mr. magic (the world’s first powder-to-liquid hand wash), the Goodknight Naturals household insecticides range, Goodknight Gold Flash (India’s most powerful liquid vapuriser), and Goodknight Power Shots (a no gas aerosol format) in Africa. He has also led the development and execution of the Godrej Professional hair colour range in India. Additionally, Venkat works closely with our Manufacturing and Supply Chain teams, helping to set up best-in-class manufacturing facilities and facilitating cost-saving initiatives and process improvements.

Prior to joining GCPL, Venkat was the R&D Head at Wipro Consumer Care, where he successfully led product development for leading brands like Santoor, Yardley, Chandrika, Safe Wash, Glucovita, etc. He also worked closely with Wipro’s South East Asia team during and post UNZA Holding’s merger with Wipro. Before that, Venkat worked with Dabur as a Principal Scientist and was involved in product development of the brand’s proprietary ayurvedic products, fermentation process improvements and intellectual property rights.

Venkat has a Master’s in Pharmacy from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, and a Post Graduate diploma in Intellectual Property Rights from Amity Law School, Delhi. He was awarded a gold medal for topping his university during his Master’s degree; and, has, during his career, also received several patents across categories.

Venkat is married to Ramalakshmi, who has a Post Graduate degree in Mathematics, and they have two children Shruthi and Sreekar. In his free time, Venkat enjoys playing sport.