Anand Kripalu

Some Lesser Known Facts About Anand Kripalu

• Anand Kripalu is an Indian businessman who is known for being the Managing Director and Global CEO at Blackstone, backed by Essel Propack Limited.

• When Kripalu was in school, his father was posted in London as part of the Indian High Commission for four years, so he received his primary schooling in London. When he turned nine, he moved to Delhi, where he struggled to get admitted into a school because he could not speak Hindi well and had an English accent. In an interview, he said that he was ragged in school for having an English accent.

• In 1970, his father got posted to Lucknow, where Anand enrolled in La Martiniere College as a boarder. In an interview, he said that the boarding school was very strict. He further added,
  

  It was a tough boarding school, run by a retired colonel from the army. Each of us was expected to behave like army cadets — marching for meals, the moment the person at the head table put down his knife and fork you had to put yours down too, even if you hadn’t finished.”

• After completing a year in boarding school, he started staying at his uncle’s house in Lucknow and completed his 9 and 10 classes as a day scholar.

• In an interview, he said that he used to cycle 13 km each way to school in the summers in Lucknow, an experience that taught him discipline and adaptability.

• He was born into a family with government employees and his parents were very strict.

• He started his career by working in the sales department at DCM Data Products, selling computers. He did not like his job and appeared in the Common Admission Test (CAT) entrance exam through which he secured a place in IIM Calcutta. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award at IIM, Calcutta while he was pursuing an MBA.

• After completing his studies, he started working at Ponds India in the sales team.

• In 1983, he started working at Hindustan Unilever, Mumbai in the sales and marketing team. He worked at Hindustan Unilever for 22 years. Despite being the head of marketing in the company, he used to travel by train to sell his products and took a cycle rickshaw to reach the station from the hotel.

• In 2004, he was appointed as the Managing director of Hindustan Unilever, Nairobi, Kenya. When he was posted in Kenya, people in his company often raised questions as to why they needed an Indian to run the company because they believed that Indians had exploited them and taken over their businesses.

• In 2005, he became the Managing director of Cadbury, Mumbai. When he joined Cadbury, the company was facing the problem of stagnated growth, so he came up with a strategy to cut down promotional costs. While he was working at Cadbury, he was responsible for the 25 per cent growth of Cadbury India’s performance. After the company showed some improvement, it launched the Cadbury dairy milk silk chocolate bar. In 2008, he started working as the Asia President of Cadbury. He launched the Cadbury Dairy Milk campaign “Shubh Aarambh” which won the 2010 Abby’s ‘Grand Prix award’ and the ‘Gold Standard 2011 APPIES Award’ in Singapore. He left the company in 2010.

• In March 2010, he joined Mondelēz International, Mumbai as the president of India and South East Asia regions.

• From 2007 to 2017, he worked as the non-executive director of Marico Limited, Mumbai.

• In 2013, he became the Managing director and CEO of Diageo India. He was also a member of the Diageo Global Executive Committee. When he joined the company, he was very nervous in the beginning because joining a liquor company after working in multi-national companies for a long time was like a taint to his image, but he thought that it was a very famous organization and would give him fame. In an interview, he said that he changed many things in the company. When he joined Diageo, there were no women working in the organisation. It was Anand who started employing women at Diageo. He faced a lot of problems because of the government policies in the liquor business. He wanted to go business neatly and was not ready to compromise with any of the government rules.

• In 2014, he was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the liquor company United Spirits.

• In March 2019, he became a member of the Board of Governors at the Indian Institute of Management Jammu and Kashmir.

• In 2020, the company Diageo India in which he worked donated 5,00,000 litres of Extra Neutral Alcohol (ENA) to the sanitiser industry to help people. They also gave around 150,000 masks to five public health departments across the country for doctors, nurses and caregivers, and Rs. 3 crore health insurance cover for bartenders in the Diageo World Class programme in India.

• In October 2020, he was appointed as the Chairman of Royal Challengers Bangalore. In an interview, he talked about his appointment as the chairman of RCB and said,
  

  Royal Challengers Bangalore is an integral part of Diageo India and behind the scenes I have been part of the team’s journey for the past 6 years. As the new season starts, it’s going to be exciting new chapter to lead the team from the front along with Virat, Mike Hesson and Simon Katich and we look forward to playing bold. I would also like to thank Sanjeev for his tremendous contribution to RCB and Diageo and wish him luck for his new role.”

• In August 2021, he became the Managing Director and Global CEO of EPL Limited, Mumbai. In an interview, he talked about his appointment and said,
  

  I am excited to lead EPL, an extraordinary company with global leadership in its segments and a pioneer in innovation and sustainability. It is one of the most successful multi-national consumer companies headquartered out of India. I look forward to working closely with Blackstone, who have a strong record in the B2B2C space, the Board, and the talented and devoted employees of EPL. We are committed to creating value and delight for all our stakeholders – customers, suppliers, employees, and shareholders.”

• In September 2022, he invested in Superfoods Valley, a nutrition and food-tech startup headquartered in Bangalore.

• Kripalu is a fitness freak and never misses a workout in the gym. In an interview, he said that when he was the chairman of RCB, he learnt a lot about fitness from the players, especially Virat Kohli. His love for cricket also grew because he would spend a lot of time
  with the team members.

  

• His wife was his classmate at IIM, Kolkata. She is on the board of UltraTech Cement Limited, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd (formerly known as Pantaloons), and Huhtamaki PPL Limited.

• Anand is the Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies (CIABC).