Sanjiv Mehta is the Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL). He became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company in October 2013 and in June 2018 was appointed as the chairman and MD.
Mehta also leads the South Asia cluster business for HUL. He is associated with Unilever for around 28 years and for the last 19 years, has led the business of the company in different parts of the world.
Sanjiv Mehta began his career in 1983 with Union Carbide. He had been a part of the crisis management team that worked on the Bhopal Gas tragedy in 1984.
In 1998, Mehta joined the Unilever Bangladesh board as its commercial director. in 2002 became the chairman and MD of Unilever Bangladesh.
In 2007, he moved to Manila as the chairman of Unilever Philippines, and in 2008 was promoted and made the chairman of Unilever North Africa and Middle East (NAME).
Noticing the impeccable leadership of Sanjiv Mehta, the company, in 2013, appointed him as the Chairman and MD of Unilever's business in India and South Asia.
His hard work over seven years at HUL is the reason why HUL's market capitalisation increased from $17 billion to over $70 billion, making HUL the top five most valuable companies in India, as well as Asia's largest consumer staples company.
At present, the Indian unit of Unilever business is the second-largest in the world, after the US.
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Under Mehta's leadership, Fobes rated HUL the 8th most innovative company in the world and the most innovative in India.
The company has won several awards, including the prestigious Economic Times' Company of the Year' & 'Corporate Citizen of the Year' awards, Business Standard's 'Company of the year' award, and the Asian Centre for Corporate Governance and Sustainability's 'Best Governed Company'.
Not just this, under his leadership HUL has taken on and expanded several initiatives that have a far-reaching societal and environmental impact. Water potential of more than 1.3 trillion litres has been created by democratizing water management in villages across India, because of the Hindustan Unilever Foundation and its community partners. Over 136 thousand Shakti women entrepreneurs have been empowered in rural India, via its Shakti program. The company's ongoing health and hygiene initiatives have impacted more than 154 million people all over the country.
Sanjiv Mehta is a member of the Unilever Leadership Executive, its global executive board. In 2021, he became the President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). Other than this, he is a Non-Executive Independent Board member of Air India Limited, TATA Group since 2022; member of the South Asia Advisory Board of Harvard Business School; Co-chairs the Advisory Network to the High-Level Panel for a ‘Sustainable Ocean Economy’; Chairs ‘Vikaasa’, a coalition of top Indian and MNC companies; Director of Board of Indian School of Business and Member of the Breach Candy Hospital Trust.
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Sanjiv Mehta was born in Kanpur and studied in Mumbai and Nagpur. He is a chartered accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Mehta has also completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. In 1993, he got married to Mona Mehta. The couple today is blessed with twin daughters - Naina Mehta and Roshni Mehta.
