Unilever marketing leadership sees shuffle amidst structural simplification

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Unilever is seeing changes to its marketing team. As part of its simplification structure as of 1 July 2022, Kartik Chandrasekhar, global lead for Lifebuoy will now take on the role of head of oral care and skin cleansing for developing and emerging markets, along with global brand lead of Pepsodent. In this role, Chandrasekhar (pictured left) leads strategy, innovation, and communication globally for brands such as Lifebuoy, Pepsodent, and Closeup. According to the company, he previously led Lifebuoy to become one of the fastest-growing brands in the FMCG company globally. In 2020, Lifebuoy expanded in 55 new markets and in September 2020, it became Unilever's latest US$1.04 billion brand.

Meanwhile, global digital director for skin cleansing and oral care, Triveni Rajagopal (pictured centre), has taken on the new job title of personal care digital transformation lead. She currently oversees Lifebuoy, Lux and Pears in skin cleansing and Pepsodent in oral care. She has over 18 years of global experience in technology, advertising, and purpose-driven marketing industries. She brings her digital expertise, leadership, and passion for creating and building digital capabilities to her brands in her current role. According to Unilever, Rajagopal is the go-to person for accelerating team growth and vision, and she has created and developed multiple culturally diverse and geographically dispersed teams.

Additionally, Unilever also named Chiradeep Gupta (pictured right) as VP, personal care, head of media and global integrated media strategy lead based in London. Gupta spent about 16 years in Asia working at Starcom and Unilever. He left Starcom in 2011 as regional director, ASEAN until 2011 to join Unilever as global media innovation manager, according to his LinkedIn. From there, he rose up the ranks as global media director based in Singapore before moving to London to helm the roles of global media strategy director and VP, media. MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out for more information.

A Unilever spokesperson confirmed the changes with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, along with the fact that these new roles came about as the company officially began its "new chapter with a simplified organisation. This restructure was first announced in January this year and the five new distinct business groups are beauty and well-being, personal care, home care, nutrition, and ice cream. Each business group is now fully responsible and accountable for their strategy, growth, and profit delivery globally.

CEO Alan Jope said previously that the new organisational model was developed over the last year and is designed to continue the step-up that it is seeing in the performance of its business.

"Moving to five category-focused business groups will enable us to be more responsive to consumer and channel trends, with crystal-clear accountability for delivery. Growth remains our top priority and these changes will underpin our pursuit of this," he added.

Unilever also promoted Dennis Perez to the role of digital marketing, media and commerce head for beauty and wellbeing for Southeast Asia recently, while retaining his existing position as head of media for Unilever Philippines. He is responsible for driving broader end-to-end digital, media, and commerce strategies across Southeast Asia while creating deeper category digital expertise in the beauty (hair care and skin care) and wellbeing (vitamins, minerals and supplements) categories.

On the departure front, Unilever saw several high profile exits recently, including EVP digital transformation and digital business, Rahul Welde, in June. Welde had been based in the UK for over six years, first moving in 2016 in the role of global VP digital transformation.

Meanwhile, media industry veteran David Porter, who has over 30 years of experience, also resigned in January. Porter is currently with global attention measurement platform, Amplified Intelligence, as an advisor and works closely with several founders advising them on strategic direction.

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