MUMBAI: Unilever Asia & Africa president and Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) chairman Harish Manwani announced key changes in the Unilever Asia Africa region, including India. The company has announced the transition from its National Management Committee to a new Management Committee (MC) effective from 1 March, 2006.

Douglas Baillie, who was named as CEO of HLL on 16 December 2005, will officially take his post from 1 March, 2006. In addition, he will be group vice president responsible for Unilever's business in South Asia, which includes Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Baillie is currently group vice president and heads Unilever AMET (Africa, Middle East and Turkey).

On the other hand, HLL managing director home and personal care Arun Adhikari has been appointed as Unilever Japan chairman with effect from 1 March, 2006.

Baillie will be heading the new Management Committee. The new members inducted into the Management Committee are Sanjay Dube as executive director - sales and customer development, Dhaval Buch as executive director - supply chain, Anoop Mathur as executive director - speciality exports and Nitin Paranjpe as executive director - home and personal care. All the appointments will be effective 1 March, 2006.

M K Sharma will continue as vice chairman with operational responsibilities for HR legal, secretarial, corporate communications and corporate affairs. Sundaram will continue as finance director and S Ravindranath as managing director of foods. They will be a part of the Management Committee reporting to Baillie.

Sanjiv Kakkar has been appointed as executive director - foods, responsible for marketing and strategy, with effect from 1 March. He will succeed S Ravindranath, on his retirement.

Dalip Sehgal will continue as executive director - new ventures and marketing services and will also report to Baillie.

The business directors will have profit and loss responsibility for their businesses to provide for a decentralized and simplified decision making structure. A single chain of command through the CEO will ensure the benefit of synergies across businesses. Functional directors will ensure excellence in functions and capability building.

Announcing the appointments, Manwani said, "The appointments are a part of our ongoing efforts to leveraging the scale and size of our organization, to bring more focus on our 'Go-to-market' and brand building capabilities and to build functional excellence across the organization. Together, these will ensure the company's competitiveness and sustained profitable growth."

"The business will remain focused on market leadership, cost leadership and thought leadership," Manwani added.

These announcements are a part of the process of simplifying the leadership structure and follow-up on the earlier appointments announced on 16 December last year.

In 2005, HLL showed consistent progress with a double-digit growth in January - September. The company continues to strengthen its competitiveness and has gained market share across categories, including the highly competitive categories of laundry and hair wash. This has been driven by a combination of innovations, market activation, new distribution initiatives and higher brand investments.