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Business News/ Companies / News/  Britannia marketing chief Anuradha Narasimhan resigns
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Britannia marketing chief Anuradha Narasimhan resigns

To join consumer goods start-up

At least eight senior executives have now resigned from Britannia over the past year. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/MintPremium
At least eight senior executives have now resigned from Britannia over the past year. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint

Bangalore: Britannia Industries Ltd’s marketing head Anuradha Narasimhan has resigned from the biscuit maker to join a consumer goods start-up, two people familiar with the matter said.

The departure of Narasimhan, a former Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) and Titan Co. Ltd executive, comes as a surprise as she had been promoted to vice-president, marketing, barely two months ago. Narasimhan will stay at Britannia for at least two more months and is likely to be replaced by an external candidate, one of the people cited above said on condition of anonymity.

Since her appointment as in 2007, Narasimhan has been the marketing brains behind Britannia’s health foods brand Nutrichoice, one of the few successful products it launched in recent years.

Narasimhan’s exit adds to those of several other top managers including former chief operating officer Neeraj Chandra, human resources head Sreekanth Arimanithaya and sales head Shridhar Panshikar. At least eight senior executives have now resigned from Britannia over the past year.

“It is true that Anu (Narasimhan) has put in her papers to take up an assignment with a consumer goods start up. It has been a tough decision for her as she was doing very well and was recently given a larger portfolio with marketing and consumer Insights. We wish her good luck for her future endeavours," a Britannia spokesperson said in an email.

Britannia’s financial performance topped analyst expectations for at least four of the past five quarters, partly as stable material costs boosted margins, and new managing director Varun Berry expanded the company’s sales and distribution network.

However, the company has struggled to retain senior executives.

While many top consumer goods makers including PepsiCo India Holdings, HUL and Cadbury India Ltd changed their senior management last year to deal with the economic downturn that forced consumers to cut spending and eroded profit margins, Britannia has lost more top executives than most.

Rebuilding the senior management team has been a key challenge for Berry, who joined Britannia from PepsiCo Inc. in February 2013 as chief operating officer.

Berry took over from long-time managing director Vinita Bali this March but had been running the show at Britannia since May 2013, when he was named as the head of the company’s India business.

He has shown a preference towards promoting Britannia executives to senior roles and has selectively hired from other companies, chiefly PepsiCo. He hired Hemant Rupani from Vodafone India Ltd as sales head last month and appointed Arvinder Singh as manufacturing head in April. Both Rupani and Singh worked at PepsiCo in various roles.

“Attrition rate is still high; it’s in the mid-teens. We’ve promoted many people to senior roles. When people have left, we’ve replaced them with people from within. Hopefully, all this will help bring us down the attrition rate. But it’s difficult and even if we can bring down the rate to 10%, I’ll be happy," Berry said in an interview on 2 June.

The loss of senior executives, especially people that a company wants to keep, has repercussions for future financial performance. So it’s very important for a company to retain good talent whether or not there’s a new management in place," said Nischae Suri, partner and country head, people and change, KPMG India.

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Published: 16 Jun 2014, 11:33 PM IST
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