Mondelez International has promoted Anil Viswanathan to MD, Vietnam, South East Asia. This comes close to one year of Viswanathan being promoted to his current role of vice president – marketing.
He has been overseeing the end-to-end delivery of the entire India brand portfolio including equity, innovation and activation while also leading the consumer insights and analytics practice. He also headed the consumer digital practice for the business while working in close partnership with India and Global Technology Leadership.
Under Viswanathan’s leadership, Mondelez India has created some of its best and most impactful advertising, including campaigns such as Not Just A Cadbury Ad and the remake of the iconic cricket commercial in 2021.
Viswanathan joined Mondelez India in May 2000 as a management trainee and has spent more than two decades in the company, across a variety of roles including Sales, Brand & Category marketing, Strategy and New Business Development. His journey in the company has taken him into regional and global roles and into different categories including chocolates and biscuits.
As an associate vice president – strategy and new business at Cadbury India back in 2008, he was working with the senior leadership to evolve and run the business strategy for the company. In 2011, he joined Cadbury Kraft India as VP – marketing – chocolates and was leading the marketing division of Chocolate for India for two years.
In 2014, Viswanathan joined Mondelēz International as senior platform manager, global chocolates and was based in Zurich, Switzerland. He overlooked end-to-end leadership and execution of Chocolate Innovation platform (Countlines) as part of the global Chocolate team. In 2017, he was promoted to associate director, marketing, AMEA and relocated to Mumbai to be a part of the regional chocolate leadership team working on innovation, strategy and special projects.
Viswanathan was promoted to senior director marketing and was responsible for the India Chocolate business and the India insights and analytics function in 2020.
One of his achievements, amongst many others, has been the launch of Cadbury 5Star globally, which is now present in three continents including markets like Brazil and South Africa.
He holds a MBA in Marketing & Finance from IIM, Calcutta and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT, Madras.
Last week, the maker of iconic snack food brands also announced the appointment of Hemant Rupani as President for its Southeast Asia (SEA) Business Unit. Rupani was the managing director of Mondelez Kinh Do Vietnam, the role Viswanathan took over.