Sanjiv Mehta is the Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Unilever Limited, which is India’s largest ‘fast moving consumer goods’ (FMCG) Company and one of the most valuable corporates in the country. Sanjiv also heads Unilever’s business in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka & Nepal) having a turnover of $7 billion as President, South Asia. Sanjiv is also a member of the 12 member ‘Unilever Leadership Executive’ team which runs global Unilever.
Sanjiv completed his Bachelor’s in Commerce (India), Chartered Accountancy (India) and has also completed his Advanced Management Program (Harvard Business School).
Sanjiv has been with Unilever for 27 years and for the last 17 years has led businesses in different parts of the world. He has been Chairman and Managing Director of Unilever Bangladesh Limited (2002 – 2006), Chairman and CEO of Unilever Philippines Inc. (2007 – 2008), Chairman of Unilever – North Africa and Middle East (2008 – 2013) and in October 2013 he assumed his responsibilities of heading Unilever’s business in India and South Asia.
During his six years at Hindustan Unilever, the market capitalization of the company has trebled from $17 billion to $55 billion and HUL is now the fourth most valuable company in the country. In this period HUL has won the prestigious Economic Times ‘Company of the Year’ and ‘Corporate Citizen of the Year’ awards, Business Standard’s ‘Company of the year’ award and Open Republic Achiever’s Award in the Business – Seasoned category. Forbes has rated HUL as the most innovative company in India and the 8th most innovative company in the world. Aon Hewitt in a global study rated HUL as the 3rd best company globally for building leaders and the Company won the ‘Global Compass Award’ from Unilever for being the best performing business.
Sanjiv is a Director on the Board of Indian School of Business, a member of the Breach Candy Hospital Trust and South Asia Advisory Board of Harvard Business School. He chairs Xynteo’s ‘India 2022’ a coalition of top Indian and MNC companies, FICCI’s FMCG Committee, CII’s National Committee on MNCs and Co-chairs the Advisory Network to the High Level Panel for a ‘Sustainable Ocean Economy’.
In 2019 Sanjiv was conferred the honorary degree of “Doctor of Philosophy in Business Management” by Xavier University (Xavier Institute of Management) Bhubaneswar and was also awarded “Business Leader” of the year award by All India Management Association.
A firm believer that ‘doing well’ and ‘doing good’ are two sides of the same coin he propagates the cause of compassionate capitalism. Sanjiv is married to Mona who too is a Chartered Accountant by training. They have twin daughters Naina and Roshni who have studied at MIT, Cornell and Harvard Universities.
