Marico-owned Beardo's CEO goes on sabbatical; Top execs of the company quit

Marico-owned Beardo’s CEO Sujot Malhotra has gone on a year-long sabbatical starting April 1, reported Moneycontrol.

Malhotra has spent 13 years at Marico and was made CEO of Beardo as soon as the FMCG giant completed the acquisition in 2020.

Malhotra’s role is likely to be divided between Siddharth Vaya, chief business officer of Beardo, and Koteshwar LN, EVP and head of digital first businesses at Marico, Moneycontrol reported.

Vaya has been with Marico for over four years. He previously worked with companies like Nivea and Reckitt Benckiser. Koteshwar LN on the other hand, joined the company in October 2023 after four years at Flipkart and around 15 years at The Coca-Cola Company.

Between 2020 and 2023, all of Beardo’s top execs who were in charge of growing the company initially left and moved on. Darayus Mehta, head of marketing and Ketan Jain, head of finance and operations at Beardo too have exited Marico in the last three months.

It is still unclear if Malhotra will return after his sabbatical. Mehta on the other hand, has started his own jewellery business. Jain too has joined Renee, a company founded by Beardo’s co-founder Ashutosh Valani.

Valani in 2017, sold 45 percent of Beardo to Marico and the remaining 55 percent was acquired by the FMCG giant in 2020.

Sanjay Mishra, chief marketing officer at Marico India played a key role in seeing the Beardo acquisition through. He quit in September 2023.

Moneycontrol also highlighted that with these moves, it shows that all of the top execs who brought Beardo under Marico’s wings and grew the company for the past three years, are no longer with the company at the moment.

"The exits of individuals mentioned in the article were in the normal course of business and at different points in time where each of them decided to pursue external career/entrepreneurial opportunities after spending significant time with the Company. None of these exits have any inter-linkage with each other as suggested in the article. Beardo continues to be a key constituent of our Digital-first portfolio and has delivered well ahead of our internal aspirations so far. The brand has exhibited robust financial performance in terms of revenue and profitability while garnering a unique and strong brand presence in the premium male grooming market in India. We are confident that the business will continue to scale up profitably in the future as well," said a Marico spokesperson.