Board of Directors

Mr. Sunil Kataria is currently the Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director of Godrej Agrovet Limited (Holding Company).

Mr. Sunil Kataria is a seasoned business leader with over thirty years of rich experience in the CPG, telecom, and retail sectors. He has a proven track record of leading large- scale business transformations and building future-ready organizations. He is also an expert in sales, marketing, business strategy, and organizational leadership.

Mr. Sunil Kataria previously served as the Managing Director of Raymond Lifestyle Limited (RLL), overseeing a diverse portfolio of six businesses. Before joining Raymond, he spent 11 successful years at Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL), as CEO of the India & SAARC cluster from 2015 to 2022. He began his career at Marico, where he spent over a decade honing his skills in marketing and sales.

His industry contributions also include serving as Chairman of the Indian Society of Advertisers and holding board positions at the Broadcasting Audience Research Committee (BARC) and Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).

Mr. Sunil Kataria holds a degree in Economics from Delhi University and an MBA in Marketing from the Institute of Management Technology (IMT), Ghaziabad. He has been recognised among India’s top business leaders and is a firm believer in ‘possibility thinking’, seamlessly blending strategic vision with flawless execution.

S. Varadaraj is Chief Financial Officer and Head – Finance & Legal of Godrej Agrovet Limited (GAVL).

Mr. Varadaraj took over as the Head of Finance and Systems in 2005. In 2010, he also took on the additional responsibility of the Legal and Secretarial functions of GAVL and its group companies. In addition, he is a Director on the Boards of Godrej Foods Limited, Godrej Cattle Genetics Private Limited and Godvet Agrochem Limited.

A Commerce graduate and a Chartered Accountant, Varadaraj is also a qualified Cost Accountant and holds a Master's degree in Financial Management. He joined GAVL as a Management Trainee in May 1994.

Mr. Varadaraj has been the recipient of several awards and certificates, such as the 'CA-CFO Award in the Agricultural Sector' from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, 'CFO 100 Award' from the CFO Institute for three consecutive years and a 'Certificate of Merit - CMA CFO Award in the category of Private-Manufacturing' from the Institute of Cost Accountants of India.

His hobbies include trekking and playing cricket and squash.

Mr. Gaurav Pande has over 22 years of experience across Foods, QSR, FMCG and Consumer Durables, with a strong track record of building, scaling and turning around businesses in the Indian market. He brings extensive experience across P&L management, sales, marketing, operations and go-to-market strategy, and joins from Jubilant FoodWorks where he was Executive Vice President and Business Head – Popeyes India.

In his current role, he has led the launch and scale-up of Popeyes in India, building the business from the ground up to a meaningful scale and driving unit level profitability. As the first employee for the brand in the country, he set up the entire operating model spanning strategy, organization, supply chain, marketing and store expansion.

Prior to this, Mr. Gaurav Pande spent ~17 years with Hindustan Unilever, where he held multiple leadership roles across Foods, Personal Care and Consumer Durables. In his last role as General Manager – Pureit and Blueair (South Asia), he led a successful turnaround of a long loss-making business, improving profitability significantly through portfolio rationalization, premiumization and cost transformation. As General Manager - Packaged Foods he led a large portfolio of brands including Kissan and Knorr, driving consistent growth, market share gains and margin expansion through innovation and sharper price- pack architecture.

He holds an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur and a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from GB Pant University. Outside of work, Mr. Gaurav Pande is an Ironman 70.3 triathlete with a passion for endurance sports. He actively invests time in coaching and building future leaders. His immediate family includes wife Deepti and children Aadhya and Advit.

Mr. Kannan Sitaram is B. Tech from IIT, Madras and MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad. He has participated in executive programs at Carnegie Mellon and Kellogg Business School.

Mr. Kannan has over 3 decades of experience building consumer product businesses in India. He started his career with Ponds (India) Limited and had several stints as a Sales and Brand and Category Manager. He moved to Hindustan Lever Limited ("HLL") in 1993, post Unilever's global acquisition of Chesebrough Ponds. At HLL, he held several Senior Leadership positions first as National Sales Manager for the rapidly growing personal products business, then as National Sales Manager for the Detergents business, at that time India's largest consumer product business. In these roles he led HLL's thrust into rural markets and played a key role in several restructuring initiatives. He, thereafter, was Head of Marketing for HLL's large beverages business where he led the consolidation of the tea business under 2 brands - Brooke Bond and Lipton. He then moved to Unilever's corporate Head Quarter in London in 2002 to join the Corporate Strategy Group where he worked with Unilever's Executive Committee to develop Unilever's global corporate strategy across the foods, home care and personal care businesses.

In 2006, Mr. Kannan joined Dabur India Limited, a leading Indian CPG company as Chief Operating Officer responsible for Dabur's consumer product businesses in India, Nepal and Bangladesh including foods, health care, personal care and home care. His leadership challenges during this assignment included accelerating Dabur's revenue and profit growth and successfully integrating 2 acquisitions - Balsara and Fem. In 2010, Kannan joined India Equity Partners (IEP) as an Operating Partner where he worked with the investing team exploring investments in the consumer products sector and as CEO of Innovative Foods, a company in the frozen foods business. He successfully managed IEP's exit from Innovative Foods to Peepul Capital. He left Innovative Foods in 2017 to join the board at Fireside as Venture Partner. Fireside is a venture capital fund focused on investing in early stage consumer companies and Mr. Kannan mentors many of these young companies.

Mr. Kannan is also an Independent Director of Godrej Agrovet Limited.

Ms. Anjali Rajesh Gupte holds a Bachelor's degree in Commerce and is a qualified Chartered Accountant & Cost Accountant.

Ms. Gupte has over 30 years of experience, having handled various functions in Finance across a varied range of industries, including Media, Financial Services, Manufacturing and Real Estate. Key areas of expertise include strategic business partnering, financial reporting, controllership, mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, business integration and reorganising business for growth and compliance.

In her recent assignments, Ms. Gupte was Director and Group Chief Financial Officer for Havas Group, India (2021-2023) and as Chief Financial Officer, South Asia for Grey Worldwide (2016-2021). Prior to this, she was the Head of Finance, South Asia & Director for Thomson Reuters India Private Limited (2008-2014) and Finance Manager, South Asia & Director at Reuters India (1998-2008). Ms. Gupte worked as a Finance Manager in Godrej Properties & Investment Limited (1995-1997) and as a Finance Executive in Gujarat Godrej Innovative Chemicals Limited (1993-1995).