Priya Nair: The Clean-up Woman

Priya Nair is Executive Director — Home Care for Hindustan Unilever (HUL) and Vice President – BPC, Unilever, South Asia, responsible for beauty and personalcare business spanning  India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

Her key responsibilities include business delivery on topline and bottomline by creating and delivering a strategic plan for the business. Nair brings with her a diverse and rich experience, including consumer insights, customer development and marketing. In her earlier roles, she has worked across various brands such as Dove, Axe, Rexona, Closeup and Pepsodent.

In her previous leadership role as Executive Director (Home Care, HUL), the Home Care business grew at strong double digits and expanded margins leading to strong value creation for HUL. The entire detergents portfolio of HUL has done exceptionally well under her leadership. The laundry business has been able to win share on the core and lead market development of emerging segments like Fabric Conditioners & Liquids and bring the business back to competitive growth.

Nair has led the sustainability initiatives with a focus on the WASH (Water, Sanitation, hygiene) programme for the company, reaching over 140 million people with a sanitation and hygiene intervention under the ‘Swachh Aadat Swachh Bharat’ initiative, educating consumers to adopt three clean habits of washing hands with soap, drinking
 clean purified water and using a clean
 toilet.

She was invited by Niti Aayog to participate in the Champions of Change programme aimed at creation of a new India, which was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Nair is also a director on Maharashtra Government’s public-private initiative of the Village Social Transformation Mission that seeks to create 1,000 model villages in Maharashtra.

She has led many award-winning campaigns including Surf excel’s ‘Daag Acche Hai’ and mobile marketing initiatives like ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’ a mobile radio service that reaches out to 40 million consumers in media dark villages that has won multiple awards. 

She has led many award-winning campaigns including Surf excel’s ‘Daag Acche Hai’ and mobile marketing initiatives like ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’ a mobile radio service that reaches out to 40 mn consumers in media dark villages