Karan Budhiraja takes charge as category head, marketing, at Perfetti Van Melle

GURGAON: Fourteen years, three industries and a bigger bag of sweets. Karan Budhiraja has started a new position as category head, marketing, at Perfetti Van Melle, with effect from Jul 2026, and he is clearly relishing it.

Budhiraja is a marketing professional with more than 14 years of experience in brand building, innovation and consumer insights. He has worked across personal care, foods and decorative paints. He is adept at building and mentoring teams, driving P&L, scaling innovations and orchestrating integrated marketing campaigns that build brand equity and drive business.

In the new role, Budhiraja drives marketing and commercial strategy for the refreshment business, with P&L ownership across a portfolio of gum and mint brands: Center Fresh, Center Fruit, Happydent and Mentos. It is a brief that rewards someone who understands both the shelf and the consumer.

He arrives with a deep knowledge of the house. Budhiraja previously led the jellies category at Perfetti Van Melle India as group product manager, handling Chupa Chups and Alpenliebe. He was responsible for the category P&L, the innovation agenda and brand building across media touch points, while upgrading Indian consumers with novel, value-added offerings. Earlier he was group product manager for Chupa Chups, and before that a brand manager who ran the P&L and marketing strategy for Alpenliebe Juzt Jelly. There he launched Jelly Bear and Bottles, introduced Jelly Goody Bears enriched with vitamin C, and won the Impact Award, first prize in the business unit.

The wider career reads like a tour of Indian consumer marketing. Budhiraja was senior brand manager at AkzoNobel, leading the super-premium interiors portfolio of Dulux Velvet Touch, Ambiance and Dulux Better Living, and brand manager at McCain Foods, handling McCain French Fries and McCain Smiles. He began on the research side, as senior manager, insights, at NielsenIQ and associate manager, consumer insights, at Perfetti Van Melle, after a summer internship at the company in 2011.

That mix is the point. A marketer who has read the data, built the brand and run the P&L is well placed to shape a category. Budhiraja says he is excited by the new set of responsibilities and deeply grateful to the leadership for entrusting him with them, naming Nikhil Sharma, Gunjan Khetan and Avishek Roy. He also thanks his seniors, mentors, team members and peers, each interaction having shaped his growth along the way.

Looking ahead, Budhiraja says he is eager to shape the category and the business, build brands and deliver strong commercial outcomes. He adds that he will keep building and learning with a team that is deeply passionate about what it creates every day, and that nothing is possible without them.