The Board of Directors of Pidilite has approved the appointment of Sudhanshu Vats as managing director and Kavinder Singh as joint managing director, with effect from 10 April 2025.
Vats has been with Pidilite for well over three years now, having joined as deputy managing director, in 2021. He has been managing director designate for the past one year.
Before joining Pidilite, he served as managing director and CEO, EPL, from 2020 to 2021.
An alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Vats started off as a management trainee with Hindustan Lever, in 1991. He then joined Unilever as area sales manager and over a period of a decade climbed to the position of regional sales manager.
From 2002 to 2004, he headed Lipton for Hindustan Lever.
He took on the role of vice president-marketing, BP (Castrol India) in 2005.
Vats was back in Unilever in April of 2006, as general manager, modern trade. Soon after he was elevated to general manager, home care, and thereafter, to vice president-skin cleansing, laundry &HHC, India. By the time he moved on from Hindustan Level in 2012, he had risen to the position of vice president-laundry, South Asia and Global Radiant. From August 2012 to April 2020, he was managing director and group CEO, Viacom18.
He also served the Indian Broadcasting Foundation as vice president for over seven years, from 2012 to 2020.
Vats was chairman, National Media and Entertainment Committee and Member National Council, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), for six years, from 2014 to 2020.
For a year after that, from April 2020 to August 2021, Vats was managing director and CEO, EPL, before his association with Pidilite began in September of 2021.
Sudhanshu Vats has also served as chairman of Broadcast Audience Research Council or BARC from 2016 to 2017.
Kavinder Singh, who has been joint managing director designate, Pidilite, since May 2024, had served Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India, as MD and CEO, GEB member, vice chairman, holiday club resorts, for over nine years, from 2014 to 2024. He was earlier associated with Pidilite, for two years as president-strategic initiatives, in 2009; and then as chief strategy officer from 2011 to 2012. He then became CEO-consumer products (MNT), for Pidilite Industries for over two years, before moving to Mahindra Holidays.
MB Parekh, executive chairman, Pidilite, admitted, “The appointments of Vats and Singh as MD and joint MD will re?ect the next phase of the Pidilite leadership journey. I look forward to working with the two of them in building the Pidilite of the future”.
