Grasim Industries announced that the CEO of its paints division Birla Opus, Rakshit Hargave, will quit his position effective December 5, 2025. Hargave is heading to Bengaluru to take over as CEO of consumer goods major Britannia Industries, reporting to its managing director Varun Berry.
Hargave, who takes over as Britannia CEO on December 15, replaces former CEO Ranjeet Kohli, who stepped down in March.
Aditya Birla Group veteran Himanshu Kapania, who is the managing director of Birla Opus, will now oversee day-to-day operations at the paints division, Grasim announced in a stock exchange filing.
Hargave's resignation culminates in a stint where he built up the business from its nascency, entered a segment- decorative paints- with dominant players, high entry barriers, and sluggish sales, all with the Aditya Birla Group's stated aim of directly challenging incumbents for a major slice of the pie.
At Opus, he oversaw a Rs 10,000 crore programme to set up six paint manufacturing facilities, with the most recent one being commissioned at Kharagpur, West Bengal, taking the company's total paint manufacturing capacity to 1.332 billion litres per year.
This also included a significant marketing spend, building up a dealership network, as well as outreach efforts towards "influencers"- painters, contractors, and others, in order to break the dominance of the incumbents, particularly Asian Paints, which earlier cornered nearly 60 percent by way of market share.
Hargave's tenure also coincided with a prolonged slump for the industry, as reduced urban consumption and lengthened repainting cycles prompted significant earnings pressure on players of all sizes in the business, even as rural spending continues on a stronger footing.
FMCG veteran
Prior to joining Grasim's Birla Opus business in November 2021, Hargave spent the vast majority of his career in the consumer goods and food and beverage businesses, with a short stint in banking as well.
Before his stint with Birla Opus, Hargave was heading the business for skincare brand Nivea's parent, Beiersdorf, for south-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and has also handled African markets, along with being the MD of the company's India operations.
He had other prominent roles with Unilever, Dominos Pizza and Nestle. He introduced the “30 minutes or free” guarantee for Dominos which revolutionised the pizza delivery segment in India.
(with inputs from Aishwarya Nair)
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