A New Role for Anand Kripalu

Anand Kripalu will handle Mondelez's (formerly Cadbury India) business in India and south Asia as part of a reassignment of portfolios.

Samar Srivastava
Updated: Dec 30, 2012 02:53:58 PM UTC
Anand-Kripalu1
(The blog has been updated to add comments from a company spokesperson.)

Anand Kripalu, the man responsible for Kraft’s businesses in India and south east Asia has had his portfolio reassigned.From January 1, 2013 Kripalu will be responsible for the company’s businesses in India and its neighbours. This comes as Mondelez International, which was recently spun off by Kraft to focus on snacking and high growth emerging markets is reworking its international reporting structure.

Kripalu who joined Cadbury India in 2005 as managing director, India has had his role changed several times. In 2008 he became president Asia for Cadbury. In February 2010 post the Cadbury acquisition by Kraft Foods became president south Asia and Indochina responsible for India, Thailand and Vietnam. In March 2012 Malaysia and Philippines were added to his list of countries.

As part of the current restructuring the company plans to have individual country heads for each of the BRIC markets, according to a company spokesperson. Kripalu's reassignment is part of that wider change. He continues to report to Pradeep Pant, whose responsibilities have been enhanced to include eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa in addition to the Asia Pacific region that he was responsible for earlier.

The changes come at a time when Mondelez’s Indian subsidiary finds itself the subject of an excise evasion inquiry.Forbes India in an August 2012 storyhad reported how the company went about claiming excise exemptions for a factory in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh even though it was not entitled to them. The matter is still under investigation and the Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence is expected to issue a show case notice in January. "The January 1 restructuring and the current excise inquiry are unrelated," a company spokesperson said in an email.

In November the matter came up for discussion in the Indian parliament and minister of state for finance S S Palanimanickam said that an amount of Rs200 crore was under investigation.

As part of the new structure Mondelez has announced five worldwide regions – Europe; North America; Latin America; Asia Pacific; and Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa (EEMEA). South east Asia, which earlier reported into three clusters either Japan, India or Asia Pacific will now have its own CEO.

India and China two high growth markets will also handled separately, the company said in an email response. The company says this is being done to sharpen its focus on these markets.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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