Minali Bhawsar steps up as associate vice president marketing at Sebamed India

Sebamed India has promoted Minali Bhawsar to associate vice president, marketing, capping a five-and-a-half-year run at the company in which she has held virtually every commercial role going.

Bhawsar announced the appointment on LinkedIn, calling it a moment of gratitude after a journey spanning sales, trade marketing, commercial excellence and category marketing. The understatement is considerable.

Her Sebamed story began in January 2021 as head of modern trade and e-commerce. She moved to head of trade marketing within 15 months, then doubled up as general manager for general trade sales across India before stepping into head of commercial excellence and trade marketing in April 2023. Most recently she served as senior general manager for category marketing from April 2025, a role she held until last month before the current promotion took effect in April 2026.

Before Sebamed, Bhawsar spent four years and four months at Mars, where she led sales capability across all channels after a decade of building a track record in organised trade. Her brief at Mars was blunt: make the sales organisation fit for the future. Before that, she was at PepsiCo for just over three years, handling modern trade heavyweights including Big Bazaar and ABRL, delivering share gains across beverages and foods, and earning a spot in the company’s selective iLeap programme for young leaders. She also picked up a Ring of Honour for superlative performance in 2014 and a CEO award for collaboration and execution, the highest decorations PepsiCo India could bestow at the time.

Her earliest years were spent at UB Group, where she joined as a management trainee in 2009 and worked her way through retail sales, key accounts and trade marketing across Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai, eventually becoming regional trade marketing manager for north India. The highlights there were characteristically eclectic: record activation numbers, brand launches for McDowell’s and Vladivar vodka, and, somewhat improbably, regional lead for the Backstreet Boys and Lamb of God concerts in Bengaluru in 2010.

Sixteen years, four companies, every channel from hypermarkets to HoReCa. At Sebamed, Bhawsar now gets to put all of it to work on a single brand — and the skincare market will be watching.