Guntas Randhawa Joins Reckitt After 17 Years At Unilever
Guntas Randhawa has joined Reckitt as regional marketing director for health in South Asia. The move follows more than 17 years at Unilever.
- Role: regional marketing director, health, South Asia, at Reckitt
- Brands in the portfolio: Dettol, Durex, Moov, Strepsils and Gaviscon
- Most recently: India head of the vitamins, minerals and supplements division at Hindustan Unilever
- Earlier at Unilever: global brand director, leading innovation development and rollout across South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa, covering propositions, packaging and communication
- Before that: brand manager, and customer development manager for modern trade in Delhi NCR
- Started: as a business leadership trainee at Unilever in 2009, after a spell as a software developer at Computer Sciences Corporation
- Education: an MBA from the Indian School of Business and a degree in information technology from Punjab Engineering College
- Stated focus: keeping these brands relevant and distinctive for the next generation of consumers
What Randhawa Moves Into
A portfolio where the categories behave very differently. Dettol is a habit, Durex is a considered and often awkward purchase, and Strepsils and Gaviscon are bought in the moment someone feels unwell. Those need three separate marketing models under one job title.
Why The Supplements Background Reads Across
Because vitamins sit exactly between the two halves of this portfolio. They are health products sold on trust and efficacy, bought like groceries, and advertised under claim rules tighter than ordinary FMCG, which is the condition of nearly everything on the Reckitt list.
The innovation years matter for the same reason. In regulated health categories the proposition is usually settled at the formulation and pack stage, not in the brief.
The Wider Pattern
Unilever remains the largest single source of senior marketing talent for rival consumer companies in India, and health is where that movement has been concentrated as the category has grown.
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