Pinkustar Borah named chief digital and technology officer at Unilever International

SINGAPORE: Pinkustar Borah is proof that you can chase growth without ever handing in your resignation letter. After nineteen years and six months at Hindustan Unilever, Borah has stepped into a role that takes the veteran out of India for the first time: chief digital and technology officer, Unilever International, based in Singapore.

The appointment caps a career that began far from any corner office, in the IT department of HUL’s Doom Dooma factory in Assam, and has since taken in supply chain, HR, legal, sales, and customer experience along the way. Before this move, Borah held the post of chief digital and information officer for personal care and customer experience at HUL, steering programmes spanning eB2B Shikhar, route to market, ecommerce, modern trade and M&A integration.

Borah’s rise through HUL reads like a map of the company itself: IT executive at the Haldia and Doom Dooma manufacturing units, a stint supporting Unilever Sri Lanka, IT head for Unilever Nepal, and senior technology leadership roles across customer development and secondary sales in South Asia, before taking charge of digital transformation for HUL’s employees, distributors, field force and retailers.

“You change companies for growth and new experiences,” Borah said of the move. “But what if you could get both, plus lifelong relationships with people who become friends and mentors, without ever leaving?”

New geography, new culture, new challenges, but a trusted organisation and familiar faces at the other end of it. For Borah, that combination looks less like a leap of faith and more like the natural next chapter of a career built on staying put and still moving forward.