MAM
Bajaj Electricals elevates Anuj Poddar to the role of managing director and CEO
Mumbai: Homegrown consumer durables company Bajaj Electricals announced on Tuesday the elevation of Anuj Poddar to the roles of managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO). Shekhar Bajaj will continue as executive chairman of the company.
Anuj Poddar joined the company in late 2018 as its executive director.
This announcement comes on the back of the ongoing and significant transformation journey and keeps in mind the company’s long-term strategy. The separation of the chairman and managing director positions is a continuation of the professionalisation of the management of the company and marks the company’s commitment to strong corporate governance standards, said the company in a statement.
Bajaj Electricals chairman Shekhar Bajaj said, “Over the last few years, we have embarked upon a significant transformation journey at Bajaj Electricals – involving many changes on the business as well as organisational front. In continuation of that, I believe this will provide further impetus to the achievement of our strategic goals and demonstrate our commitment to strong corporate governance. Anuj Poddar has demonstrated exceptionally visionary leadership, executional ability, and passion in driving this transformation journey, and I am confident that in his elevated role he will continue to drive our company forward and add value to all stakeholders.”
Anuj Poddar said, “I am thankful to the chairman and our board for entrusting me with this elevated responsibility. I am truly excited about what lies ahead of us at Bajaj Electricals – we have a clear vision and roadmap for building this future, and together with our entire team, we are committed to being a best-in-class organisation that delivers superior performance and value creation.”
Over the last three years, Bajaj Electricals has undertaken multiple initiatives, including strengthening of the leadership, streamlining of its corporate structure, a turnaround of its performance and balance sheet, and the planned demerger of the EPC business.
Further, the company achieved a key strategic milestone of becoming net-debt-free on 31 March 2022 – a first for the company in over four decades. Having achieved these milestones, Bajaj Electricals is preparing for aggressive growth across its businesses in a focused manner.
The company posted its Q1 FY 22-23 results. For the first quarter of 2022-23, the company achieved revenue from operations of Rs 1,229 crore as against Rs 857 crore, a growth of 43 per cent over the first quarter of the previous year. For the quarter, the company made profit before tax and profit after tax of Rs 57 crore and Rs 41 crore, respectively, as against a loss before tax and loss after tax of Rs 31 crore and Rs 25 crore, respectively, in the corresponding first quarter of the previous year. For the quarter ended 30 June 2022, the company generated positive cash flow from operations of Rs 165 crore in cash equivalents and surplus investments of Rs 254 crore.
MAM
Smytten appoints Shishir Varma as CEO of Pulseai Research
Rebranded AI platform scales with 150 plus clients and 30 million users.
MUMBAI: In a world obsessed with what consumers say, Smytten is betting on what they actually do. The company has appointed Shishir Varma as chief executive officer of Pulseai Research, signalling a sharper push into AI-led, behaviour-driven consumer insights. The move comes as Smytten rebrands its insights vertical from Smytten PulseAI to Pulseai Research, marking a shift away from traditional, project-based research towards a more continuous, intelligence-led model.
Varma brings over 30 years of global experience across APAC markets, including India, China and Japan. Most recently managing director, Insights at Kantar Japan, he has built and scaled consumer insight businesses across geographies, including playing a key role in establishing Millward Brown in India. His mandate now: turn Pulseai into a category-defining platform in a space still dominated by surveys and static reports.
The pitch is straightforward but ambitious. Instead of relying on claimed responses, Pulseai Research taps into observed behaviour leveraging Smytten’s ecosystem of 30 million users built over a decade of product discovery, trials and purchases. The idea is to close the long-standing gap between what consumers claim and how they actually behave.
The numbers suggest early traction. In under 18 months, the platform has onboarded over 150 enterprise clients across sectors, pointing to growing demand for faster, more reliable alternatives to legacy research models.
Under the hood, the platform blends behavioural data with AI and large language model-led analysis to deliver real-time sentiment tracking, scalable qualitative insights, faster quantitative studies and always-on brand intelligence. In practical terms, that means compressing research timelines from weeks to days without sacrificing depth.
The ambition extends beyond FMCG. Pulseai Research is positioning itself as a cross-category intelligence layer, spanning auto, education, gadgets and emerging consumer segments anywhere behaviour-rich data can sharpen decision-making.
For Smytten, the leadership hire is less about optics and more about direction. With Varma at the helm, the company is leaning into a simple but powerful premise: in the age of AI, insight isn’t just about asking better questions, it’s about watching more closely.
