Good Glamm Group in India hires former Reckitt South Asia CMO Sukhleen Aneja

Good Glamm Group has appointed Sukhleen Aneja as CEO, beauty and FMCG brands.

 

In her new role, she will be responsible for creating a strategic road map for leading digital-first

brands, integrating and scaling the company’s recent acquisitions and leveraging the digital ecosystem, including content, creator and communities. 

 

Aneja moves from Reckitt, where she was CMO, South Asia, hygiene portfolio. 

 

She will report to Darpan Sanghvi, group founder and CEO, Good Glamm Group. 

 

Sanghvi said, “We are extremely excited to have Sukhleen on board as we set our eyes on creating the biggest Digital Beauty Conglomerate from South Asia. She brings with her an immense wealth of experience in building strong beauty and personal care brands combined with strong commercial acumen and consumer centricity. Sukhleen will be instrumental in defining the next phase of Good Glamm ‘s evolution on building the house of Brands including the recent acquisitions like The Moms Co. and St. Botanica.” 

 

Aneja added, “I am thrilled to join Good Glamm Group at a time where the D2C revolution in India has just begun. Beauty and personal care remain highly underleveraged online and that’s where lies the opportunity for creating strong and powerful consumer-first brands leveraging the unique digital and content ecosystem that the group has built.” 

 

With almost 20 years of experience, she has also worked with companies like Hindustan Unilever and L’Oréal Paris.

 

We caught up with Aneja, to learn more about her new role, the evolution of the beauty category and the company’s way forward. 

 

Excerpts:

 

How are you going to approach your switch from CMO to CEO? How different do you believe the two will be?

 

I have spent a large part of my career in beauty. In my experience at Reckitt too, I worked on several personal care brands. There’s a category familiarity and expertise that I already bring with me. However, in the transition from marketing to CEO, I would be heavily relying on the complementarity and synergies that exist within the team. There is a massive headroom for expanding beauty and personal care online and offline. As I step in, I’ll be very keen to build on what’s already working well and strengthen areas that could allow us to reach a greater scale and agility, while debottlenecking new businesses that are coming in. 

 

You have previously worked with L'Oréal and HUL. How has the beauty category evolved since you last worked in it?

 

Beauty has taken a massive leap. You can map out the inflexion points in a very linear fashion to see how the changes have happened. The D2C revolution in India has just begun. While growing up, we put a large amount of faith in brands that we saw from our past. The amount of experimentation that’s happening in beauty now, especially with new-age brands, is phenomenal. The kind of risk that used to be associated with trying new brands, has really gone down. The change that’s coming in, is also from the younger consumers who are entering the fold. They are far more risk-averse and open to trying new things. So, if your products are fantastic, consumers are really willing to give you a chance. It’s a great time for new brands to be born and created. 

 

The Good Glamm Group has acquired five companies in 2021, the most recent of which is MissMalini. Going into 2022, are we expecting more acquisitions or will it be about consolidation?

 

How we onboard the companies we acquire and how much we are able to support and grow them, is where the magic would lie. There are going to be a lot of strategic acquisitions which are going to be relevant for making the business a large conglomerate in the digital space. However, a lot of them have to be well thought through, but you’ll see a lot more action coming our way. 

 

What can brands do to slam false narratives around beauty and empower young women? 

 

As marketers, especially the ones who work in beauty, we all have to be responsible for creating a narrative that inspires women, instils confidence and at no point in time commoditises them or makes them feel inferior. All of beauty is either in the realm of prevention or enhancement. Why narrow it down to beauty alone? Categories like medicine too, are either for curative purposes or preventive purposes. The important thing for the beauty industry is, to be honest. If you make any claim with regard to enhancement, it should always be backed by science, clinicals and research. At no point in time, should you ever mislead a consumer. That’s where the responsibility lies. You’ll always have consumers who are takers. 

 

How do you anticipate the D2C category to be, five years down the line?

 

There’s going to be plenty of action  - with a lot of investor money moving in this space and fantastic entrepreneurs trying spaces that have not been tried before. With D2C and online adoption going up, there will be many more brands that are going to be built and many more consumers to choose from.