How Harsh Mariwala ‘Groomed’ Marico

by R. Gopalakrishnan, M. Suresh Rao

AN EYE-OPENING ACCOUNT OF HARSH MARIWALA’S VISION, MANAGEMENT STYLE AND ACTIONS TAKEN TO SHAPE THE ORGANIZATION Harsh Mariwala, just out of college, joined Bombay Oil Industries Ltd (BOIL) as the fourth generation scion in his family's traditional spice trading and consumer oil manufacturing business. He learned the key drivers of growing a profitable consumer product business on the field in the inhospitable hinterlands of Maharashtra and Gujarat—the first Mariwala to do so. Alongside, through reading and taking the initiative to learn from mentors, national and global, he soaked up the essentials of building sustainable brands and creating a multi-channel network in sync with the times. He demonstrated vision and leadership in transforming the quality conscious, traditionally run, family commodity business to a professionally managed, branded consumer goods giant—Marico—in the face of well managed international competition in the Indian market. Marico is today an emerging market multi-national with a noticeable presence in the domain of branded health and beauty products, making a difference to peoples’ lives in 25 countries.

158 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 2021

About the author

R. Gopalakrishnan has been a professional manager for forty years. He has a wealth of practical managerial experience, initially in Unilever and more recently in the Tata Group. He has lived and worked in India, the UK and Saudi Arabia, and has travelled extensively all over the world. He began his career in 1967 as a computer analyst with Hindustan Lever after studying physics at Kolkata and electronics engineering at IIT, Kharagpur. He worked in the marketing function before moving to general management. During his years with Unilever, he was based in Jeddah as CEO of the Arabia unit; later, he was managing director of Brooke Bond Lipton India and then vice-chairman with Hindustan Lever. He has been president of the All India Management Association. Currently, he is the executive director of Tata Sons based in Mumbai. He also serves on the boards of other companies.