HUL appoints new sales head

Hindustan Unilever Limited, India’s biggest FMCG company, said it has changed its sales and customer development head.

It said it has appointed Punit Misra, currently Vice President for Route To Market (RTM) for Distributive Trade/Traditional Trade and Cash & Carry, as Executive Director and Vice President, Sales and Customer Development. Misra will be part of the HUL Management Committee. The change will be effective November 2014.

The current VP for sales, Manish Tiwary, will be appointed as the Managing Director of the Gulf business of Unilever.

Punit Misra joined HUL in 1996 and has worked across Marketing and Customer Development roles both in HUL and Unilever. “In his current role as the Vice President, Customer Development Global RTM, TT and CDIT, Punit has successfully led the creation of global repeatable models in the area of Route To Market (RTM) for Distributive Trade/Traditional Trade and Cash & Carry, and helped drive their execution across key markets in Unilever. He has also been leading the CD IT portfolio for Unilever globally, a key priority for Unilever CD. Punit’s successor will be announced in due course,” said the company, which owns most of the leading brands of soaps, detergents, colognes and other fast moving items sold in India.

“As the Executive Director and Vice President, Sales and Customer Development, Manish Tiwary led the largest increase in sales coverage by adding 1 million plus perfect stores across India. He also executed structural changes to provide a sharper focus to the Foods business and laid the blueprint for Winning In Many Indias – the customer development model of HUL that was rolled out in September 2014,” HUL said.