Unilever’s Nitin Paranjpe: ‘Retirement is the start of a new innings’
Unilever’s Nitin Paranjpe first announced his retirement in February this year. Now, a few weeks from his retirement day, Paranjpe shares an emotional note about his 37-years long innings.
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Unilever's Chief People & Transformation Officer Nitin Paranjpe will be moving on from the FMCG company at the end of this month. Paranjpe, 61, joined Unilever's Indian unit in 1987 as a management trainee. He was the youngest CEO at the Indian unit and had a successful five-year tenure at the helm of HUL before he took on the role of president-homecare business in 2013. Under his watch, annual revenue grew to Rs 26,000 crore in 2013 from Rs 16,000 crore in 2008. He was also Unilever's second Indian-origin COO in 2019.
In a LinkedIn post, Paranjpe wrote, "At the end of this month I will be retiring from Unilever after 37 years – almost to the day.I joined what was then called Hindustan Lever Ltd back in June 1987 on a management training scheme… and I never left. It is hard for me to stress quite how much of an achievement it felt to be offered a role in HLL, which even back then was one of the most iconic companies in India. It was a role that nearly anyone in India would have been thrilled to get – and that hasn’t changed."
"Today, Unilever remains one of the most sought after employers in India. Once I was here, I really never thought beyond three years or so, because every role I reached felt like a new success. I have always said that when I was made Head of Sales I could have retired, happy with where my career had got to. And it’s true! Everything beyond that role has been purely a bonus."
"I have been fortunate (thanks to an understanding family), to have had the opportunity to travel for my work, living in new countries and experiencing new cultures, working with some of the most talented individuals and the best teams you could hope to meet. The people really do sit at the heart of our business, and it has been a privilege to work directly with so many."
"And of course, the cliché is true: retirement really isn’t anything more than the start of a new innings. But I will speak more about that in a future post. I will also save my team thank-yous for a future post, but of course it goes without saying that I will miss working at this iconic company of ours with so many talented and wise individuals."
"In the meantime, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for following me here on LinkedIn, and for giving me the benefit of so many hundreds of thoughtful, intelligent and sometimes challenging comments and insights. Having the opportunity to connect with so many has been a real privilege."
