Sanjiv Mehta Is FICCI Prez; Anish Shah Joins Leadership Board

Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman and Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Limited; President, Unilever South Asia and Member, Unilever Leadership Executive has today taken over as FICCI President for 2021-2022, from Mr Uday Shankar at the apex chamber's 94th Annual Convention held in New Delhi and inaugurated by Mr Amit Shah, Hon’ble Union Minister of Home Affairs and Cooperation, Govt of India.

Subhrakant Panda, Managing Director, Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Ltd has been elevated as Senior Vice President of FICCI.  Dr Anish Shah has joined FICCI leadership as Vice President.

Mehta is also the President of Unilever South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka & Nepal), and is a member of the ‘Unilever Leadership Executive’ which is Unilever’s Global Executive Board.

In his message as the incoming President of FICCI, Sanjiv Mehta said, “It is an honour to lead FICCI as its President. I look forward to working with the passionate team at FICCI as we help the members and the nation in the next phase of its growth and prosperity.”

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. In this period, HUL has won several awards and recognitions including the prestigious Economic Times ‘Company of the Year’ & ‘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. Aon Hewitt in a global study rated HUL as the 3rd best company globally for building leaders.

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.

Mehta 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. He was also awarded the ‘Pralhad P. Chhabria Memorial Global Award’ for his outstanding contributions to the industry, the ‘Sir Jehangir Ghandy Medal for Industrial and Social Peace’ by XLRI – Jamshedpur and ‘JRD Tata Corporate Leadership Award’ by the All India Management Association.  

Senior Vice President, FICCI: SUBHRAKANT PANDA, Managing Director, Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys

Subhrakant Panda is a business leader who has a thorough understanding of the nuances of government policies and their implications at the ground level.

He joined IMFA Group in 1993 which has interests in ferro alloys, mining & power. In 2006 he was appointed Managing Director of the flagship company Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Ltd (estd 1961; www.imfa.in), the country's leading, fully integrated producer of ferro alloys, and his current role is to define strategic goals including growth & diversification plans.

He is actively involved with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and is a Member of the Steering Committee besides having served earlier as Chairman of the Odisha State Council and National Manufacturing Committee.

Panda was President (2017-18) of the International Chamber of Commerce - India Chapter and is only the 3rd Indian to have been elected President (2013-15) of the Paris-based International Chromium Development Association (ICDA).

Panda is a voracious reader and his interests include technology.

Vice President, FICCI: Dr Anish Shah, Managing Director and CEO, Mahindra & Mahindra

Dr Anish Shah is the Managing Director and CEO of Mahindra & Mahindra. He joined Mahindra Group in 2014, as Group President (Strategy), and worked closely with all businesses on key strategic initiatives, built capabilities such as digitization & data sciences and enabled synergies across group companies. In 2019, he was appointed Deputy Managing Director and Group CFO, with responsibility for the Group Corporate Office and full oversight of all businesses other than the Auto and Farm sectors, as a part of the transition plan to the CEO role.

Dr Anish was President and CEO of GE Capital India from 2009-14, where he led the transformation of the business, including a turnaround of its SBI Card joint venture. His career at GE spanned 14 years, during which he held several leadership positions at GE Capital’s US and global units. As Director, Global Mortgage, he worked across 33 countries to drive growth and manage risk. As Senior Vice President (Marketing and Product Development) at GE Mortgage Insurance, he led various growth initiatives and played a key role in preparing the business for an IPO, as a spinoff from GE. In his initial years with GE, Anish also led Strategy, eCommerce and Sales Force Effectiveness and had the unique experience of running a dot-com business within GE. Anish also received GE’s prestigious Lewis Latimer Award for outstanding utilisation of Six Sigma in developing a “Digital Cockpit.”

He has diverse experience with global businesses beyond GE. He led Bank of America's US Debit Products business, where he launched an innovative rewards program, led numerous initiatives in payment technology and worked closely with various teams across the Bank to enhance value for the customer.

As a strategy consultant at Bain & Company in Boston, he worked across multiple industries, including banking, oil rigs, paper, paint, steam boilers and medical equipment. His first role was with Citibank in Mumbai, where he issued bank guarantees and letters of credit as Assistant Manager, Trade Services.

Anish holds a Ph.D from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business where his doctoral thesis was in the field of Corporate Governance. He also received a Masters degree from Carnegie Mellon and has a post-graduate diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He has received various scholarships, including the William Latimer Mellon Scholarship, Industry Scholarship at IIMA, National Talent Search and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.