Brands
Navdeep Sachdeva joins Zepto as senior VP and head of procurement
MUMBAI: Zepto has appointed Navdeep Sachdeva as its senior vice president and head of procurement, a strategic hire aimed at supercharging the company’s quick commerce operations. With a career spanning PhonePe, Flipkart, and Bharti Airtel, Sachdeva brings deep expertise in turning procurement into a strategic growth engine rather than a cost function.
Sachdeva shared his excitement about joining Zepto, saying his early discussions with founders Aadit Palicha and Ramesh Bafna convinced him of the company’s long-term vision. “It’s clear Zepto is building with purpose, scale, and ambition,” he said, adding that he looked forward to tackling meaningful challenges alongside a stellar team.
In his new role, Sachdeva will lead high-impact negotiations and strategic partnerships across supply chain, logistics, marketing, and technical procurement. He will focus on scalable sourcing strategies, cost efficiencies, and long-term vendor relationships to support Zepto’s hyper-growth ambitions.
Previously, Sachdeva headed strategic sourcing at PhonePe, overseeing marketing, IT, facilities, HR, and call centres. He also held leadership roles at Flipkart, managing commercials and services procurement, and spent over nine years at Bharti Airtel leading pan-India procurement operations. His expertise spans complex negotiations, performance-linked contracts, and operational resilience initiatives.
With Sachdeva on board, Zepto is set to strengthen its supply backbone, streamline procurement as a strategic lever, and gain an edge in India’s fiercely competitive quick commerce market.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
