MAM
Recruiter Nupur Mehta jumps to James Douglas as managing partner
MUMBAI: Nupur Mehta has landed at James Douglas as managing partner, capping a year of musical chairs in India’s executive search industry. She left PageExecutive in September after just eight months as partner, having previously spent nearly 11 years at Michael Page climbing from senior consultant to director.
James Douglas positions itself as the successor to EMA Partners’ Indian operations, focused on recruitment and succession planning. Mehta will oversee the firm’s consulting work, helping companies identify talent and groom future leaders. She thanked K Sudarshan, Reet Bhambhani, Subburaj S, Sanjeev Das and Malini Bhupta in her LinkedIn announcement—presumably the team behind the new venture.
At Michael Page, Mehta ran the healthcare, life sciences and technology practices, managing a team of over 15 sales consultants whilst handling profit-and-loss responsibilities. She served on the Page Group’s global shadow executive board, the India technology board, the Asia-Pacific healthcare board and the India diversity and inclusion council. Before that, she spent two years as associate director building out the same verticals.
Mehta joined Page Group in 2014 fresh from business school, where she had specialised in human resources. A brief summer internship at Mercer, working on a retirement benefits survey, and a year as a software engineer at HCL Technologies rounded out her early career. Her move suggests James Douglas is betting on experienced recruiters to differentiate itself in a crowded market, where firms like Korn Ferry, Egon Zehnder and Russell Reynolds compete for high-margin executive mandates.
Whether the new firm can carve out a niche remains to be seen. India’s executive search business has grown as companies scramble for senior talent, but the sector is notoriously relationship-driven. Mehta’s decade-plus Rolodex may prove the firm’s biggest asset.
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.
