Brands
Mukta Nakra takes charge as Crocs India’s new HR head
MUMBAI: Crocs India has appointed Mukta Nakra as its head of human resources, marking a significant leadership addition as the brand looks to deepen its talent capabilities and scale its India operations. She joins the company after an extensive career spent shaping people strategy across global retail, fashion, banking and technology organisations.
Nakra steps into the role from Marks and Spencer Reliance India, where she spent more than seven years as head of human resources and sustainability. There, she oversaw people strategy for more than 100 stores across 37 cities and played a key role in strengthening the employer brand, taking the company’s Great Place to Work ranking from 82nd to 13th. She worked closely with the leadership team to drive workforce planning, succession pipelines, digital capability building and frontline development while also steering the company’s sustainability mandate.
Before M&S, she led talent strategy at Wiley as talent director for the Asia Pacific region while also serving as the India HR head. She partnered global teams during Wiley’s shift toward digital learning, focusing on building leadership, strengthening skills and aligning HR priorities with new business models.
Nakra earlier spent more than three years at American Express as director – market HR, supporting the company’s consumer, commercial and merchant businesses. She led enterprise-wide talent and learning for 12,000 employees and drove several culture, inclusion and leadership programmes, including the multi-company women’s leadership initiative Reach Out.
Her longest stint was at Walmart India, where she held progressive roles across compensation, talent and corporate HR for nearly six years. She helped shape rewards architecture, leadership pipelines, capability frameworks and people operations during the company’s high-growth retail and cash-and-carry years.
Nakra began her HR journey at ABN AMRO and ACES, where she led compensation, performance management and HR transformation projects, including the setup of HR shared services and system transitions.
With more than two decades of experience spanning retail, financial services, publishing and global capability centres, Nakra is expected to play a central role in shaping Crocs India’s people strategy as the brand expands its footprint and strengthens its talent engine.
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.
