Over the past decade, Hindustan Unilever, the country’s largest FMCG company, has increased its diversity (largely inclusion of women in the workforce) from 18% to over 42%, with a target to reach 50%. It is no mean achievement, especially in a country that struggles to retain women in the workforce. Getting a woman MD & CEO to captain the Rs 60,680 crore ship is indeed a great way of showing to its stakeholders that for the FMCG mammoth, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) is indeed serious business.

However, Priya Nair (currently president, beauty and well-being at Unilever), who would be taking over as MD & CEO of HUL in August this year, is certainly not a mere diversity hire. A HUL lifer, Nair, who was earlier executive director (personal care), has been among the most impactful managers the company has groomed. While former MD & CEO Sanjiv Mehta is credited to have quadrupled the company’s market value with his forward-looking vision of ‘Reimagining HUL’—with strategies such as WIMI (winning in many Indias, the company’s localisation strategy), premiumising of portfolios as well as putting in place a strong digital ecosystem, Nair had played a crucial role in giving wings to Mehta’s vision.

One of Nair’s favourite anecdotes when she was heading the homecare portfolio in 2018 was a woman using Comfort fabric conditioner in a remote village in Andhra Pradesh. She had many such examples that firmed her belief that the average Indian had indeed become aspirational and was willing to premiumise. She had been relentlessly driving the agenda of market development and premiumisation, which eventually became the second important pillar. Travel to any Tier II or III market in India today, and you'll find that washing clothes with liquid detergents and using fabric conditioners is hardly a novelty. In fact, there are a lot of regional brands that have also premiumised and have started giving HUL a run for its money with competitive pricing.     

Her mettle as a suave businesswoman further came to the fore during Covid-19 when she led HUL’s Rs 100 crore fight against the pandemic in 2020. As head of the personal care division, Nair not only ensured the company stepped up production of soaps, sanitisers and came up with a host of relevant innovations, she also tied up with municipal corporations across the country in their fight against the virus and set up isolation centres. HUL also donated over 2 crore Lifebuoy soaps to the underprivileged sections of society.

Nair is certainly not new to HUL, and she has a deep understanding of consumer pulse. However, her new avatar as MD & CEO is not going to be a cakewalk either. She takes over at a time when consumption is showing signs of picking up (with monsoons not playing spoilsport), but HUL has to significantly up its ante to get its mojo back. Though the company did see an uptick in volume growth in the last quarter of FY25, it came at the expense of a dip in profitability.

Revival of volume growth may have been a priority, but the company kept pushing its premiumisation agenda with the launch of hydration drink Liquid IV and the acquisition of new-age personal care brand, Minimalist. “We want to remain operationally excellent, be competitive in outcomes, and grow profitably. We want to do that by making sure that we keep investing behind our strategy and not take our eyes off that, because the big prize is in the markets’ longer-term future, which is very good. We are investing for that future and we are managing the near term by remaining competitive so that we are stronger when we come out of this slowdown,” outgoing MD & CEO Rohit Jawa had said in a recent interview with Fortune India.

The analyst community believes the company has overdone its premiumisation focus. “There have been fewer launches for the mass consumer in the past couple of years, and this has certainly led to the company losing market share,” points out a senior analyst at a leading brokerage.

Though the head honchos of most leading FMCG companies don’t agree with losing market share to regional brands, a recent report of Fortune India on India’s consumption trends shows a clear trend of regional brands gathering steam. At Varanasi-headquartered Jalan’s Retail’s (a popular hypermarket format in Eastern UP) store in Jaunpur, it was indeed a surprise to see consumers lapping up liquid detergents. But there were not too many takers for either HUL’s Surf Excel nor P&G’s Ariel, the preference clearly was for the liquid variant of Fena, a popular detergent brand in the North. Fena was competitively priced, but more importantly, the consumers felt that it was as good as Surf or Ariel in quality. “Regional brands have considerably upped their ante in quality as well as packaging. Today, the consumer needn’t buy a regional brand just because it is cheaper, she gets quality too,” points out Bhagirath Jalan, director, Jalan’s Retail.

“The new MD of HUL has to create buzz around the company. The market loves buzz and the company hardly made any noise in the last two years,” says Arun Kejriwal, a senior stockbroker.

Most leaders at HUL are known for their long stints, and Jawa has created history of sorts by being around for just two years. While a section of the industry wonders whether the current HUL MD has been asked to resign, a leading FMCG distributor from Bengaluru comes to his rescue. “Jawa filled the large shoes of his predecessor, Sanjiv Mehta. He needed time to grow the business the way Mehta did, and moreover, he took over at a time when volume growth was a challenge. I would like to believe that Jawa has decided to move on for personal reasons.”

As Nair gets ready to take over the mantle this August, there are expectations galore. Will HUL, under her leadership, become an example of an organisation that has 50% gender diversity? Will she be able to replicate the growth that her former boss, Sanjiv Mehta, had brought about? All eyes are on Nair!