Mumbai: India’s largest consumer goods companies raised pay for most chief executives and offered hefty packages to new leadership hires in FY26 despite sluggish demand and weak volume growth, although some CEOs whose businesses faced operational challenges took pay cuts.
Data from FY26 annual reports shows that while most FMCG companies increased CEO remuneration, the year’s biggest leadership changes also came with big pay packages. Hindustan Unilever, Britannia and Nestlé India all appointed new chief executives during the year, while CEOs at Godrej Consumer and ITC took pay cuts.
Marico’s CEO Saugata Gupta earned the highest total pay at ₹47.24 crore, 20.7% higher than the previous year and 327.16 times the salary of the company’s average employee.
Sunil D’Souza of Tata Consumer Products received the biggest hike among FMCG CEOs in the year, a 21.8% increase in remuneration during FY26 to ₹15.84 crore.
All these packages include salaries, perquisites, bonuses, and other pay components.
Tata Consumer and Marico integrated major acquisitions in FY26. Tata Consumer’s two acquisitions — Capital Foods and Organic India — delivered growth of 40% and 27%, respectively in Q1FY27. The two companies grew 5% and 28%, respectively, in FY26.
Marico acquired digital-first, high-growth brands including nutraceuticals brand Plix, personal care brand Just Herbs, and protein and supplements brand Cosmix; under Gupta, the company’s digital-first brands hit an annualised revenue run rate of over ₹1,100 crore.
New CEOs were also appointed at substantial hikes. Nestlé India brought in Manish Tiwary, former India country manager for e-commerce giant Amazon, at a salary of ₹26 crore for FY26, while his predecessor Suresh Narayanan was paid ₹23.4 crore in FY25, per the company’s annual report.
Hindustan Unilever appointed Priya Nair as chief executive in August 2025, replacing Rohit Jawa, who had completed just two years of his five-year appointment period.
Nair’s total remuneration for the period was ₹18.19 crore while Jawa’s total compensation for FY26 was ₹14.44 crore.
Britannia appointed Rakshit Hargave as CEO in December after a prolonged search, ending an interim arrangement under vice-chairman and managing director Varun Berry. His total pay was ₹8.52 crore during the year, compared to ₹1.64 crore for Berry in FY26.
However, Nair, Tiwary and Hargave’s compensation is not directly comparable to that of their predecessors, because they served in the top job for only a few months in the financial year.
“All these organisations are looking at that rare breed of talent, which is few and far between,” said Kaushik DasGupta, managing partner for India at global executive search and leadership advisory firm Odgers.
“And hence at the CEO level, they’re ready to pay that premium. The additional compensation that companies pay for a new leadership talent is relatively a small figure compared to the revenue of the companies. And for the right talent, companies are ready to invest in aggressive compensation packages.”
Data shows the HUL chief executive’s compensation as a ratio of the company’s median employee salary is higher than her predecessor’s. Per HUL’s annual report, in FY26, the CEO drew a salary more than 162 times that of the median employee. In FY25, this number was 146x. Britannia did not publish this multiple for FY26.
The median salary multiple in Indian annual reports refers to the statutory disclosure under Section 197(12) of the Companies Act, 2013, showing the ratio of a director's or CEO’s pay to the median employee remuneration.
Talent at a premium
Industry experts say FMCG companies are opening up their wallets to secure talent that can navigate continued macroeconomic uncertainty and deliver results. Consumption trends and volume growth improved in the second half of FY26 after GST rates were cut in September on packaged essentials.
But that volume led growth is under threat again as demand gets uncertain due to the El Niño overhang on the monsoon, and the West Asia crisis causing crude-linked inflation and supply chain disruptions.
“The FMCG sector is not witnessing volume growth. FMCG companies are resorting to price rise and premiumization strategies to sustain growth,” said Ankur Bisen, senior partner at management consultancy The Knowledge Company. Besides, companies may have to contend with subdued rural demand due to the threat of the El Niño and rising competition for mass consumers from new quarters.
"Private labels of modern retailers were challenging the growth of FMCG companies and people were delaying expenditure as real wages were growing slowly,” Bisen said.
Others argue that the search for such talent started even earlier.
“Post-covid, in the FMCG sector, hirings have focused on executives who have proven capability in four things – managing complex supply chains, strong people leaders with high emotional quotient and experience in M&As and ability to incubate new businesses as as well as drive organisation wide innovation,” Odgers’ DasGupta added.
Clipped Fortunes
Not all CEOs have made big bucks in the financial year gone by. Two CEOs faced a pay cut in FY26, data from the annual reports show.
Godrej Consumer’s Sudhir Sitapati had a 10% reduction in total pay to ₹31.54 crore from FY25, the sharpest cut this year. Even so, he is the second highest-paid FMCG CEO. Sitapati’s salary cut comes at a time when Godrej Consumer’s Indonesia business declined by 2% in FY26 and the Africa business was undergoing a turnaround in the period.
Meanwhile, ITC’s Sanjiv Puri’s total pay also fell 7% in FY26 to ₹23.91 crore. ITC’s shares are down more than 30% on the National Stock Exchange in the last 12 months compared to the benchmark Nifty50 which has dipped marginally in the same time period.
ITC is grappling with unprecedented cigarette tax hikes and the company’s consolidated profits after tax before exceptional items fell 23% year-on-year in the June 2026 quarter, led by a 35% drop in profits from the cigarettes business.
Dabur’s Mohit Malhotra took a 5% salary hike in FY26 to 15.35 crore before being elevated as global CEO in February. By the end of April, Herjit Bhalla, formerly managing director of The Hershey Company India, was appointed the India CEO.
Total compensation for these executives includes basic pay, allowances, perquisites, and stock options, as mentioned in the annual report.