Mr Sameer Suneja, Managing Director of the confectionery giant Perfetti Van Melle India, is moving on to an international assignment. Mr Ramesh Jayaraman, who is currently the Managing Director of the company’s businesses in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, will be the new Managing Director of Perfetti Van Melle India.
Mr Suneja, 40, will now be based in the Netherlands and take on a larger responsibility in the global operation of the company. He will report to the global CEO of Perfetti, Mr Ubaldo Traldi. In his 15-year stint with the company in various capacities, he has played a key role in the company’s growth and has been heading the Indian business for the last four years.
It is during his tenure that the company entered the snacks category in India, thus becoming the first subsidiary in the group to diversify into the non-confectionery segment.
In his new role as Executive Vice-President, he will identify and develop projects in different markets related to new product ideas and exchanging cross-group experiences in the marketing and commercial fields.
Mr Jayaraman is a graduate of XLRI, Jamshedpur. In India, he worked for Cadbury and Britannia, in the marketing area. He also had a brief stint with Ogilvy and Mather. Since early 1999, he has been working mainly outside India, and his assignments have taken him to China, France, Egypt, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In his recent interview to Business Line , Mr Suneja said the Rs 1,500-crore company was planning to set up its fourth plant in the country, “as all the three plants were running to full capacity.”