ON 1 JANUARY 2026, Haleon plc formally handed its chairmanship to Manvinder Singh (Vindi) Banga, succeeding Sir Dave Lewis after the company’s first years as a standalone FTSE-listed business. For a board still defining its post-demerger identity, the choice was telling: steady hands, global instincts, and a leader who understands both the discipline of public markets and the urgency of growth.
Banga was already embedded in the company’s DNA, having served as senior independent director since Haleon’s 2022 listing. “It is a privilege to chair Haleon and I look forward to working with the board and management team to support Haleon’s continued development,” he said on taking up the new role.
That closing phrase – “continued development” – is pure Banga. He is not a grandstanding chairman. He builds, calibrates, and compounds.
His authority was forged over 33 years at Unilever plc, where he rose to become president of global foods, home and personal care, and a member of the executive board. Colleagues recall a leader who could stride from detergent factories in India to strategy sessions in London without changing tempo. As chairman and managing director of Hindustan Unilever, he ran one of India’s largest listed companies; later, he shaped Unilever’s global sustainability agenda long before ESG became boardroom shorthand.
If Unilever taught him scale, private equity sharpened his edge. As an operating partner at Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), he has chaired portfolio companies and led the firm’s Sustainability Council, arguing that climate and operational excellence are not moral add-ons but sources of value. Announcing a climate leadership programme in 2025, he observed: “Many of our companies are already creating value… This program is designed to help upskill our colleagues… in identifying and driving changes to create and protect value.”
The public sector, too, has claimed his time. Reappointed in 2024 as chair of UK Government Investments, the Treasury’s centre of expertise in corporate governance and finance, Banga operates at the fault line between politics and markets. It is a role requiring discretion, steel and the capacity to advise ministers while reassuring investors – qualities that have made him a trusted presence across Whitehall and the City.
Yet power, in Banga’s case, is not confined to balance sheets. As chair of council at Imperial College London, he has helped steer one of Britain’s great scientific institutions at a moment of global ambition – including the launch last year of Imperial’s new hub in Bengaluru, deepening research partnerships in India in areas from climate to antimicrobial resistance.
The initiative carries a quiet symmetry. An IIT Delhi gold medallist in mechanical engineering and an MBA gold medallist from IIM Ahmedabad, Banga embodies the bridge between British institutional heft and Indian intellectual capital.
Through his philanthropic work supporting cancer research and the arts, he has invested in institutions that outlast quarterly cycles – reinforcing a belief that leadership, at its best, is stewardship.
