Rajiv Rajgopal Appointed Chairman of Akzo Nobel India
The Board has designated Rajiv Rajgopal, Managing Director, as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Akzo Nobel India Limited with effect from November 16, 2023. He replaced Oscar Christian Maria Jozef Wezenbeek
The board also appointed Rohit Ghanshyamdas Totla as an Additional Director in the category of Wholetime Director (being in the whole-time employment) with effect from November 16, 2023. Subject to approval of the shareholders.
Rajiv Rajgopal joined AkzoNobel in 2013 as the Head of Sales and Marketing for decorative paints in India and later became the Country General Manager. Then he took on the role of Regional Director for performance coatings in the Middle East & Africa. He has also served on the Boards of various AkzoNobel group companies in that region. Before AkzoNobel, he was the CEO for Broadband & Data at Bharti Airtel Limited. His background includes roles at Hindustan Unilever and BP/Castrol India, focusing on Sales, Marketing, and Business Leadership. He is a Chemical Engineer from the University of Mumbai with an MMS (Marketing) from SP Jain, Mumbai, and has attended programs at INSEAD Singapore, Harvard Business School, and the Centre for Creative Leadership.
Rohit Totla has more than 23 years of experience across organisations like Balsara Home Products (now Dabur India Limited) and Hindustan Coca Cola Beverages. Totla joined AkzoNobel in 2009 and has handled various roles as Regional Manager – West, Marketing Manager, General Manager Sales, Director Sales – Deco Paints, and is currently working as the Director-Commercial Excellence – South East South Asia region (2022 onwards). In the current role, he is leading the strategic commercial excellence function with focus on strategizing routes to Market, driving pricing, Transformation Projects, driving customer experience and excellence. He has a Degree in BE (Electronics) from Nagpur University, and PGDBM from Sydenham Institute of Management, Mumbai. He has also attended an Executive Program from Dale Carnegie and IMO, Lausanne.
