Britannia names Siddharth Parakh as head of strategy and business development

MUMBAI: Britannia Industries has pulled off something of a coup, poaching Siddharth Parakh from the Tata Group’s inner sanctum to head its strategy and business development function. The appointment, cleared by the board via circular resolution on August 2 and effective the very next day, comes as the FMCG giant sharpens its leadership bench for the next phase of growth.

Parakh spent the last four and a half years inside the Group CFO and Group Strategy Office at Tata Sons, working the levers of investment, corporate development and M&A across a conglomerate worth $300 billion. That is about as close to the nerve centre of Indian capitalism as it gets, and Britannia will be hoping some of that dealmaking instinct rubs off on its own expansion plans.

His path there was no accident. Parakh cut his teeth at PwC and Grant Thornton on statutory audits and IFRS reporting, before pivoting into investment banking at MAPE Advisory Group and then Edelweiss, now Nuvama, where he rose to assistant vice president advising clients across consumer, technology and healthcare sectors on M&A and fundraising. A summer stint at Samara Capital, evaluating over 35 companies for a $500 million private equity fund, rounds out a CV built almost entirely around spotting and closing deals.

Parakh is a chartered accountant and company secretary by training, holds a postgraduate diploma in management from S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, and has completed the advanced international finance programme at Cornell University. He also carries the Economic Times Young Leader award, no small badge in a country that produces no shortage of ambitious finance professionals. Add in nine years as visiting faculty at institutions including IIM Lucknow and IIM Indore, and Britannia has landed someone as comfortable in a lecture hall as a boardroom.

For a company keen to move beyond biscuits and diversify its portfolio, hiring a career dealmaker to run strategy is a statement of intent. Parakh’s brief will be watched closely, not least by rivals in the FMCG space who will now be wondering what Britannia has planned next.