HLL elevates Sharma to vice chairman, C K Prahalad, Glaxo MD join truncated boar

MUMBAI, MARCH 31: FMCG major Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) has made some major changes in its board room by elevating its Legal Director M K S...

MUMBAI, MARCH 31: FMCG major Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) has made some major changes in its board room by elevating its Legal Director M K Sharma, 52, as the next vice chairman. The multinational also appointed C K Prahalad, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan Business School, and Homi R Khusrokhan, managing director of Glaxo India Ltd as non-executive independent directors.

Making the announcements here today, outgoing HLL chairman K B Dadiseth said Sharma will continue to hold charge of the legal department. There were already two external directors on HLL’s board – Deepak Parekh and V Narayanan.

HLL also included seven new executive directors to the management committee of the company. They are: Satish Dhall (Plantations), Dalip Sehgal (new ventures), Anoop Mathur (chemicals and agri business), Arun Adhikari (personal products), Jitu Mehta (ice cream), S Ravindranath (beverages) and Gunender Kapur (foods – cutinary products, edible fats and popular foods).

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The board strength at 12 members, stands reduced from what it was last year, ie 14 members. Interestingly, while more external directors have been taken on the board, no internal executive has been elevated to the board level as part of a new norm, say company insiders. The board level position left vacant by outgoing director (personal products) Harish Manwani has not been filled up. Arun Adhikari, who is to replace Manwani with effect from May 1, this year, will instead be part of the Management Committee as executive director.

An HLL statement said Sharma joined HLL as Legal Manager, in Mumbai, in 1974. Following stints in Calcutta and subsequently in Mumbai again, he became head of legal secretarial services in 1985. He joined the management committee in 1990, as Vice President, and became a Director on the board in 1995. Sharma will be second in command to M S Banga (46), who takes over as the new HLL chairman on May 1, 2000.

Sharma had served on many government and industry committees. Most recently he was a member of the government-appointed committee on the recodification of the Companies Act, the suggestions of which resulted in the Companies Bill 1988.

Sources said, the move is aimed at making the board a "thinking" body, as a source for formulating the vision through a culmination of expertise of external directors who hail from diverse fields of operation. The Management Committee will be more in touch with the daily operations of various business divisions. The Committee has been strengthened by adding seven new members as executive directors who will operate along with the board members who are also part of the Management Committee. The total strength of Levers’ Management Committee is 19 members.

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HLL watchers say the move to broad-base the Management Committee by elevating seven members to this post, is to pave the way for the next-in-line managers into getting more command over their respective areas. The idea is to empower managers to take care of the day-to-day operations of their respective business categories and to bring about more freedom into the organisation.