New Delhi: Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman and Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) will be appointed as the president of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) at the conclusion of FICCI’s 94th Annual General Meeting on December 18. Mehta, currently a senior vice president of FICCI, will be succeeding Uday Shankar, the current president of FICCI.

Mehta is also the president of Unilever South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal), and is a member of the ‘Unilever Leadership Executive’ which is Unilever’s Global Executive Board. During his eight years at the helm, HUL’s market capitalisation has increased by over $55 billion making it one of the most valuable companies in the country, said FICCI in a statement on Monday.

In this period, HUL has won several awards and recognitions including the prestigious Economic Times ‘Company of the Year’ and ‘Corporate Citizen of the Year’ awards, Business Standard’s ‘Company of the Year’ award and the ‘Best Governed Company’ award by the Asian Centre for Corporate Governance and Sustainability. Forbes rated HUL as the most innovative company in India and the 8th most innovative company in the world.

Mehta, alongside leading HUL, is also a Director on the Board of Indian School of Business, member of the Breach Candy Hospital Trust and the South Asia Advisory Board of Harvard Business School. He chairs Xynteo’s ‘Vikaasa,’ a coalition of top Indian and MNC companies. He was conferred honorary ‘Doctorate degree in Business Management’ by Xavier University, Bhubaneswar.

He has also been recognised as the ‘Business Leader’ of the year by the All India Management Association, the ‘Best CEO Multinational’ by Forbes India Leadership Awards, the ‘Management Man of the Year’ by Bombay Management Association, the ‘CA Business Leader’ by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the ‘Best Transformational Leader’ by the Asian Centre for Corporate Governance & Sustainability and ‘Business Leader of the Year’ by Economic Times.

Mehta has done his Bachelors in Commerce (India), Chartered Accountancy (India) and has also completed his Advanced Management Program (Harvard Business School). He is married to Mona Mehta, who too is a Chartered Accountant, and they have twin daughters Naina and Roshni, who have studied at MIT, Cornell, and Harvard Universities. A firm believer that ‘doing well’ and ‘doing good’ are two sides of the same coin, he propagates the cause of compassionate capitalism. /BI/