Hindustan Unilever reshuffles top brass as ice-cream demerger nears

MUMBAI: Hindustan Unilever is rearranging the deckchairs ahead of its ice-cream divorce. The consumer goods giant announced a clutch of senior management changes on 1 December, with Vandana Suri returning from Indonesia to take charge of its home care division as executive director from 1 January 2026.

Suri, currently general manager for beauty and wellbeing at Unilever Indonesia, will succeed Srinandan Sundaram, who is moving up to become chief executive of Unilever International. She brings two decades of brand-building experience across PepsiCo, Tetra Pak and Nielsen before joining HUL in 2011, where she led the premium laundry portfolio and later drove premiumisation in skin care as vice president for skin care and colour cosmetics.

The reshuffle comes as HUL’s demerger of Kwality Wall’s (India) Limited edges closer to completion. The ice-cream unit has already begun distancing itself from its parent, shifting its registered office from Unilever House in Andheri East to Oberoi Commerz II in Goregaon East on 1st December. Three non-executive directors—Navin Jain, Vinita Nair and Shalini Sinha—resigned from Kwality Wall’s board on 30 November as part of the reconstitution following the scheme of arrangement.

HUL chief executve and managing director Priya Nair praised Sundaram’s nine-year stint on the management committee, crediting him with driving “decisive market share gains” in home care. She expressed confidence that Suri’s “deep understanding of consumers, markets and ecosystems” would propel the division to even greater heights.

The moves signal HUL’s determination to keep its core business firing on all cylinders even as it splits off its frozen desserts arm—a rare moment of corporate surgery in India’s typically stable FMCG sector.