SOME companies have chosen to make changes as we emerge out of the pandemic and that’s what’s happened at Unilever plc, where Nitin Paranjpe’s role has expanded.
In January 2022, it was announced that he was being appointed chief operating officer, chief transformation office and chief people officer. Prior to this he just had the title of chief operating officer. He will take up his expanded roles in April 2022.
Humorously, the colloquial expression – he’s a big cheez might come to mind.
As Unilever announced his role expansion, it also said it was shedding 1,500 management positions in shake-up globally. Paranjpe now heads up the human resources function for Unilever. Alan Jope, CEO, also announced the company was changing its structure and would be organised around five distinct business categories: Beauty & Wellbeing; Personal Care; Home Care; Nutrition and Ice Cream. Among the brands Unilever has today are Axe, Dove, Lux, Cif, Hellmann’s, Wall’s, Magnum and The Vegetarian Butcher, to name just a few.
Towards the end of 2020, Paranjpe took time out to speak to the GG2 Power List. Much of our interview at the time was dominated by Covid and Paranjpe and Unilever had special cause to remember it as he told us.
He knows Mattia Maestri – a Unilever manager, who was identified as Italy’s first official Covid patient No 1 Maestri, who was 38 last year, made a full recovery but only after being treated in intensive care for three weeks and then spending months in rehabilitation before being let home. “He was in a coma for a long time,” describes Paranjpe on a Zoom call from his London home. “It was very, very serious but thankfully, by God’s grace, and the effort and care of everyone, he came through it and is well. “It’s a very remarkable story.
“You can take inspiration from this – it’s an extreme example, but right across the world there are stories of resilience and people coming together and figuring out new ways of doing things in a world none of us had ever imagined. It’s inspiring and breath-taking.”
Much of his work over the year has been spent on responding to the crisis, while continuing production under safe Covid conditions.
He himself is no longer jetting off every few days to see and talk to Unilever managers dotted around the world. “I haven’t slept in the same bed in more than a week for the last seven years,” he tells the GG2 Power List. “It’s remarkably refreshing and pleasant. The time I got to spend with my family was an absolute bonus.”
Unilever is one of the world’s biggest corporations – and serves an estimated two and a half billion people around the globe every day.
You would be hard pressed to find a household or an individual who doesn’t buy Hellman’s, Colman’s, PG Tips, Magnum or Ben & Jerry’s; or Persil, Surf, Domestos or Cif, among its home care brand lines; or Dove, Vaseline, VO5 or Lynx in its personal care brands.
The company operates in 190 countries and employs some 155,000 people across the world.
As chief operating officer, Paranjpe is very much at the coalface and has the ear of British CEO Alan Jope. Paranjpe’s principal responsibility is the yearly results – the profit and loss column of the company’s accounts.
Paranjpe tells us there are 25 managers who directly report to him, and he is part of the Unilever Leadership Executive – made up of all the company’s senior heads of sectors (such as beauty and personal care) and territories.
This is a smaller sub group of just 12 of the most senior Unilever managers above that – of which he is also a member. He tells the GG2 Power List that the stay-at-home order in the UK, and lockdown restrictions for most of the management staff – for those who could work from home – had meant a readjustment and new ways of working. “It has challenged notions of how we communicate and how often we talk, and we’ve addressed issues to do with isolation, mental and physical health.
“People came together and we saw the generosity of people – and we’ve been able to flatten the organisation – every week almost, the CEO and some members of his team communicate with the whole organisation.”
Being a global British company, its leadership executive has diversity – there are nine women of 23 executives listed on the company website as part of the Unilever Leadership Executive and eight of these are also from minority ethnic communities (in the British context).
Paranjpe recognises that the diversity agenda is not just about women – especially in light of last year’s Black Lives Matter concerns.
“We have to create the right conditions and allow everyone to feel they can bring all of themselves (to their work) and that they can fulfil their fullest potential. Are we there? The answer is ‘no’, by any stretch of the imagination.”
He stresses to us that Unilever is on a journey and looking to see how it can develop talent from every corner of the globe. He believes passionately that Unilever possesses the willpower to move forward on this aspect of the diversity debate. “Do we have the stamina and resilience to get that outcome (on diversity)? We are absolutely determined.”
He says the lead is taken from the top and that Unilever’s leadership executive is committed to diversity. “I thought I was an incredibly inclusive leader but frankly – I’m not as inclusive as I thought I was – I want to have that mirror – and that learning culture where we can all hear and start doing something.”
Paranjpe might not have looked like an executive destined for the very top of the management chain. He has now been with Unilever for 17 years and his elevation to CEO of Hindustan Lever and executive vice-president of south Asia, was unexpected in April 2008.
A good communicator, personable and very friendly, he says he never set out to be the top man – he eschews the idea even. “I wanted to be the best I could be – but everyone kept saying you must aspire to be the best in the world – but that is not up to me.
“And so I had this philosophy that if I can do the best I can, then whatever level I got to – will be the best level I am destined to get to.”
In a crude sense, it is about being satisfied with one’s lot in life and not hankering for something – it is quite Indian – and while for some it can be interpreted as inertia or laziness (it is a common refrain as to why India is not doing as well as it might, economically), for others it is about doing your best and not expecting rewards. You still do your best but don’t think about the outcome – do your duty and do it to the best of your ability. “Too many people are unhappy because they judge their life success based on someone else’s (idea of) success. And you can’t go through life feeling miserable and bitter about what you’ve got.
“Just be yourself,” he says emphatically.
He graduated in mechanical engineering from Pune before going to Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management and worked in engineering for Larsen & Toubro before starting as a management trainee with Unilever in 1987 in India. He has two grown-up daughters.