Sales, Marketing and Brand Management Expert

7/2014 – 10/2015

Led the brand planning process for ITC’s legacy brand, Wills Navy Cut®, implemented go-to-market strategies and achieved commercial goals in highly regulated and competitive markets (tobacco)
· Provided strategic guidance to the sales team to achieve annual targets through analysis, insights and marketing support in highly competitive geographies. Share in these geographies grew from 3.7% to 4.2% between Nov 2014 – July 2015
· Key brand stakeholder for all commercial functions and lead for forecasting processes such as sales estimation and analysis, supply chain and inventory planning and finance activities to ensure profitability and growth
· Complete P&L responsibility for ITC’s nascent luxury cigar brand- Armenteros – annual turnover of USD 0.4M
· Led the amplification of Navy Cut’s brand proposition via 3 integrated multi-channel campaigns that achieved over 100000 consumer engagements via retail, digital and social media activation
· Re-launched portfolio in the Middle East with superior packaging solutions and achieved value growth of 32%

SAP RE-IS, SAP IS-RE, IT-Support (allg.), Management (allg.), Marketing (allg.), Markenmanagement, Public Relations, Medien (allg.), Finanzen (allg.), Einzelhandel (Retail)

6/2011 – 6/2014

Head and profitably grow ITC’s businesses in Hyderabad and Telengana (Population: 35mn) with turnover of USD 260mn from diverse categories such as packaged foods, personal care products, cigarettes and stationery products

Lead a cross-functional team of 90 employees in sales, finance, HR, supply chain and logistics and an indirect team of 610 distributors and salesmen in trade marketing and distribution activities

Developed and implemented an innovative business model to grow volume of packaged spices from 90 tons to 192 tons in 8 months as the Business Unit Head, ITC Ltd.

Improved the quality of data analytics and designed effective sales schemes by improving order capture technology

Reduced distributors’ dependence on company’s credit from 35% to 1% by improving shipment efficiency

Implemented lean inventory model for distributors to save up-to 60% warehouse space and improve ROI

Lean Management, Personalwesen (allg.), Marketing (allg.), Handelsmarketing, Vertrieb (allg.), Design (allg.), Finanzen (allg.), Handel (allg.), Logistik (Allg.)

1/2005 – 4/2010

Key Clients: Unilever (Closeup, Kissan Juices), Cadbury (Perk, 5 Star, Gems), Indian Premier League (IPL - Cricket)

Key Responsibilities:

Develop strategic brand communication and own the process from concept to implementation

Adapt global brand strategies to Indian markets and create locally relevant brand communication

Led an agency team to plan the new market entry of one of Unilever’s global food brands – Ades juices

Key member of the local team responsible for translating the global strategy for Unilever’s brand ‘Closeup’

Management (allg.), Account management, Kommunikation (allg.), Public Relations