Happy birthday, Sanjiv Mehta: the man who built HUL into a $76 billion giant

MUMBAI: Sanjiv Mehta, the man who ran Hindustan Unilever for the better part of a decade, celebrates his birthday this July, and the numbers he left behind at HUL make for a rather good present to reflect on. Mehta, who served as chief executive, managing director and chairman of India’s largest consumer goods company, was born in July 1960, and his tenure at the top, from October 2013 to June 2023, reads less like a corporate résumé and more like a masterclass in value creation.

The scale is hard to overstate. HUL more than doubled its total turnover on Mehta’s watch, clawing out market share in some of the country’s most fiercely contested categories along the way. The company’s EBITDA margin improved by 860 basis points, a figure that speaks to a decade spent squeezing operational fat rather than chasing vanity growth. But it is market capitalisation where the story turns properly eye-watering: HUL’s valuation surged nearly five-fold, from around $17 billion in 2013 to $76 billion by the time Mehta handed over the reins, one of the more spectacular value expansions in recent Indian corporate history.

For anyone in media and marketing, Mehta’s fingerprints are all over how Indian advertising dollars get spent today. As head of the country’s biggest advertiser, his calls shaped industry norms far beyond HUL’s own balance sheet. He was an early and aggressive champion of the “Reimagining HUL” agenda, using big data, AI and digital infrastructure to turn a traditional supply-chain giant into a hyper-local, tech-led operation. He also clocked, well ahead of most rivals, that the convergence of linear media, connected TV and OTT streaming demanded an entirely new grammar for brand storytelling in a fragmented Indian market, and set HUL’s data-driven marketing playbook accordingly.

Mehta’s rise was built on unglamorous fundamentals: training as a chartered accountant, followed by the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School, and a Unilever career spanning more than three decades and 25 countries. Before he ever set foot in HUL’s boardroom, he delivered strong growth in Bangladesh, the Philippines, North Africa and the Middle East. In 2019, that track record earned him a seat on Unilever’s twelve-member Leadership Executive as cluster president for south Asia, a region spanning India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal that drives billions in consolidated turnover. His footprint extended well beyond Unilever too, taking in a stint as president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, alongside board roles at Air India, Danone and the Indian School of Business.

Retirement from HUL has hardly slowed him down. Mehta has since partnered with global names such as L Catterton, turning his attention to spotting and nurturing India’s next wave of consumer-facing businesses. Two decades from now, the industry may well be crediting him with shaping that generation too, proof that for some executives, the second act is every bit as sharp as the first.