MAM
BBC Worldwide beefs up cookware and Lifestyle licensing offer
MUMBAI: BBC Worldwide is upping its cookware and lifestyle offer with plans to launch licensing programmes for in-house properties and through agency deals.
Kirstie Allsopp, BBC GoodFood and Gardener’s World join MasterChef as key brands in BBC Worldwide’s licensing portfolio.
BBC Worldwide senior licensing manager Cassie Allen said, “The cookware and lifestyle markets are substantial areas of growth for us. We have premium brands which have already performed strongly on launch and we’re looking forward now to taking these properties trade-wide and in to more categories.”
Kirstie Allsop launched her debut range of homewares and gifts in Marks & Spencer last year. The M&S range continues into 2012 and BBC Worldwide will be taking the brand trade-wide with new lines including stationery, home fragrance, outdoor products, ceramics and craft sets from September.
The BBC’s commercial arm also launched Gardener’s World product for the first time in Boots in Autumn/Winter 2011. The range includes pruning sets, a barometer, nesting boxes, clocks and gardens tools. Additional products to launch this year include watering cans, a thermos flask and a garden kneeler. Gardener’s World is looking for other opportunities to go trade-wide from Spring/Summer 2013.
BBC GoodFood already has mass awareness across the UK with over three million viewers on the channel; the magazine has a monthly circulation of 300,000 monthly and 3.7 million website users. The GoodFood Show further attracts over 100,000 visitors annually.
BBC Worldwide’s licensing team has been developing the style guide and a phasing plan for GoodFood with ambitions to launch the first range of cookware in early 2013. The team has their sights on signing up new partners on a range of products which include cookware, bakeware, ceramic oven tableware and textiles including aprons, tea towels and oven gloves.
MasterChef and Junior MasterChef product across 40 SKUs launched in John Lewis in 2011 and fast became one of their top 10 cookware licenses. The range will be extending out to a number of independent stores and cookware specialists this year.
Brands
UltraTech Cement appoints Jayant Dua as managing director
Dua will succeed K. C. Jhanwar after his term ends in December 2026
MUMBAI: UltraTech Cement, the flagship cement arm of the Aditya Birla Group, has elevated Jayant Dua as managing director, effective 1 April, 2026.
The company’s board also approved his appointment as additional director, managing director and key managerial personnel, effective 1 January, 2027, following the completion of the current managing director K C Jhanwar’s term on 31 December, 2026, according to a regulatory filing.
Dua will serve as managing director for a four-year term from 1 January, 2027 to 31 December, 2030.
A veteran executive with more than 37 years of professional experience, Dua joined the Aditya Birla Group’s cement business in 1996 and spent nearly a decade in various functional and leadership roles.
Over the past two decades, he has held several profit-and-loss and chief executive responsibilities across multiple group businesses, including insulators, insurance, Century Cement and the chlor-alkali segment. In 2023, he was elevated to lead the group’s renewables and textiles businesses.
Within the group, Dua has received several internal honours, including the chairman’s individual award for exceptional contribution in 2002, the outstanding leader award in 2009 and the leader of leaders recognition in 2022.
He holds an engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, an MBA from International Management Institute and has completed the advanced management programme at Harvard Business School.
