Unilever, one of the world's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies,could elevate Leena Nair as its chief HR officer, ET reported on Tuesday.
The company's formal announcement is still underway and according to people aware of the development Nair will likely to be the new Human Resource head of Unilever and replace Douglas Baillie, it added.
Nair, the 45-year-old XLRI Jamshedpur alumnus, worked at key senior-level management positions in Unilever's India location before shifting to the Anglo-Dutch company's London headquarters in 2013 as its senior vice-president for leadership and organisation development and global head of diversity and inclusion.
The elevation of Nair has once again put the spotlight on a new breed of Indians that multinationals groom for top jobs globally-people managers, the report said.
In past, Indians due to their inherent knowledge of a challenging but potential market environment, were mostly selected for operational roles globally as multinationals shifted focus to emerging markets to maintain their growth momentum. In the last couple of years, several Indians had taken up human resource roles globally that expects them to deal with a multi-ethinc workforce spread across the world.
In May this year, Johnson and Johnson, the US pharmaceutical major, had appointed Sumeet Salwan from Unilever as the human resource head for its consumer products division, according to media reports. In 2013, Pavan Bhatia was appointed as senior vice-president for global talent acquisition and deployment at PepsiCo.
