The Transformation Specialist

Diageo India MD and CEO Anand Kripalu, an industry veteran with a reputation for turning around struggling businesses, speaks to CEO India on leadership, the changing face of the alcobev business, and transforming organisations intrinsically

Leading three large consumer businesses in a career spanning over 30 years — 22 years in Unilever, eight in Cadbury, now coming onto six in Diageo — is a rare hat-trick in the Indian corporate world; yet it is an achievement that Anand Kripalu wears lightly on the shoulder. Leading different kinds of businesses, playing different kinds of roles (a third of his career in sales, a third in marketing and the rest in general management) and involving himself across many categories — from talcum powder, to oral care, to detergents, to chocolates and now to alcohol — progress for Kripalu was moving up the scale of indulgence!

UK-based Diageo plc inducted Kripalu, a former MD at Cadbury India Ltd, Head of Sales Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) and MD Unilever East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania), as CEO of Diageo India (United Spirits Limited) in Bangalore in 2013. It raised a few eyebrows in an industry which until then, was famously incestuous with most senior managers being industry insiders. And then there were friends who initially questioned Kripalu’s decision to agree to lead India’s largest beverage alcohol company. Kripalu confesses: “At first I got cold feet. Did I want to join the alcobev industry? It had a tainted reputation about business not being done the right way. It was a category people loved to enjoy in the evening but did not want to be associated with in the day!”