FMCG veteran Saibal Bhattacharyya joins Vadilal Industries as chief operating officer

AHMEDADBAD: Vadilal Industries has landed a heavyweight. Saibal Bhattacharyya, a seasoned FMCG and commercial strategy executive with over two decades of experience across some of the world’s biggest consumer brands, has joined the Ahmedabad-based ice-cream giant as its chief operating officer. The appointment, which took effect in June 2026, signals Vadilal’s intent to inject serious operational firepower into a brand already rich in legacy and heritage.

Bhattacharyya arrives from Nagarro, the technology and digital services firm, where he served as director of strategic initiatives for one year and five months. The stint was brief but, by his own account, rewarding. He singled out colleagues Manas Human, Anurag Sahay, and Aanish Singla as having made the experience both a pleasure and a learning curve.

Before Nagarro, Bhattacharyya spent five years at PepsiCo as senior director of sales, where he drove the global commercial sales transformation agenda, embedding capabilities such as trade promotion management, net revenue management, and category and space management. The scale was considerable: his work touched revenues upwards of $2bn and productivity gains in excess of $600m. It was not his first tour at PepsiCo either. Earlier, from September 2010 to May 2011, he served as vice-president of customer marketing, leading the company’s Pepsi World Cup activation plan and all centralised trade and activation initiatives.

In between his two PepsiCo stints, Bhattacharyya served as India general manager and vice-president at Aintu, a Silicon Valley start-up connecting FMCG and FMCD companies with retailers and consumers through online and offline touchpoints. He built the India business from scratch over three and a half years, managing the full P&L, setting up retail channels, onboarding brands, and handling investor relations, with work spanning the intersection of technology, business, and behavioural psychology.

His broader career spans some of the most demanding arenas in consumer goods. He spent five years at Pernod Ricard as commercial head for international brands, driving P&L management, sales, revenue, and marketing from Gurgaon. Before that, he held a general manager role and a branch sales manager position at GlaxoSmithKline across three and a half years. His career began at Johnson and Johnson, where over four years he moved through roles as area sales manager, trade marketing manager, and senior product manager, handling brand development, launch strategy, and BTL calendar planning for India. He cut his teeth even earlier at Colgate Palmolive, where he spent three years as an area sales manager.

Bhattacharyya described Vadilal as “an iconic brand with such a rich legacy and strong heritage” and said he was looking forward to the new chapter. For its part, Vadilal, which has built one of India’s most recognisable frozen foods and ice-cream empires, now has at its helm a commercially sharp operator who has driven billion-dollar agendas at the world’s largest consumer goods companies.