Brands
PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi hails Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative
KOLKATA: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for ‘Make in India’ would help boost up manufacturing and employment in the country, PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi said on Saturday.
Nooyi, who heads the Fortune 500 company, also said that business success nowadays is measured on quarter-on-quarter or year-on-year basis.
“I think the PM is absolutely right on this. It creates a manufacturing base and employment,” said Nooyi, during a brief media interaction at Indian Institute Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) convocation, in Kolkata.
She informed that almost everything that her company sells here is “Made in India.”
Answering a query as to whether her company was looking to promote its Rs 33,000 crore investment plan by 2020, Nooyi quipped, “That’s a lot of money… let’s get on with that.”
Talking about the success of business, she said, “Most successful businesses are those, which focus on the long-term. The most successful companies are the ones that create value over the long term for employees, for shareholders, and for the greater community.”
“We’re working every day to build a more balanced portfolio, to conserve natural resources, and to create diverse, inclusive workplaces, because we understand that long-term growth is contingent upon a healthy relationship between a company, its community, and its consumers,” Nooyi said.
She further said that challenges faced by India are inter-connected, which demands solutions and leadership.
“We still face complex challenges like inequality, climate change and resource scarcity that demand solutions and leadership. Making these challenges even more complex is the fact that they are all interconnected. You cannot dive into one issue without touching another,” Nooyi said.
In her concluding remarks, Nooyi said that though the county has made a lot of progress over the last four decades, India has a long way to go going forward.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
