If fate had willed otherwise, Sunil D’Souza would have been a doctor. Or perhaps an architect. But D’Souza, the MD and CEO of Tata Consumer Products, chose to study electronics engineering at Pondicherry Engineering College. 

In a land where students are scrambling to get admission to one course, D’Souza, incredibly, landed seats in three different fields — actually four, as he had already enrolled for a BSc degree in Bombay University, where he studied for a week, and then one month at JJ School of Architecture.   

We are meeting for an early breakfast at the Taj Coromandel in Chennai, and the trim and fit D’Souza is on a tight schedule. In one hour, he’s got a review meeting with his team and then a field visit before he flies out to Hyderabad late evening. We are quick to order— him eggs sunny side up and coffee, while I settle for a masala omelette, a croissant and coffee. There isn’t time to indulge in the huge breakfast spread, regrettably!  

Continuing about his early education saga, D’Souza recalls, “I got calls from Pondicherry as well as St John’s Medical college in Bangalore. So I told my dad, ‘let’s go down to Pondicherry, see the place, and we’ll take the night bus to Bangalore’. Ultimately, I chose engineering. Even though software was the flavour, I liked the hardware side of it. Pondicherry was so different those days (he was there during 1985-89). Hindi was a challenge, but you could speak to the rickshaw drivers in French, English or Tamil. It was a great place to be.”  

D’Souza did a two-year stint at Siemens medical electronics after his engineering, before quitting for an MBA from IIM-Calcutta. Like many top B-school graduates, he too joined Hindustan Unilever and was assigned to Lipton in Bengaluru.  A short stint followed with Standard Chartered credit cards, when it was just launched, before he figured out it was not the place for him. 

Hanoi calling  

A whirl of job changes and country-hopping followed. Joining Coca-Cola Co, he did stints in Ahmedabad, Surat and Mumbai, and soon after got a call from Pepsi. “Pepsi said, ‘we’re looking for someone in Vietnam’. So, I first went and looked up a map as to where exactly Vietnam was located,” he recalls with a laugh. He landed for interviews in Hong Kong, got selected in double quick time, and was told to cancel his return ticket and head to Hanoi instead. The Pepsi interviewer said, “Go and have a look, but don’t come back saying you made a mistake.” Because Pepsi there had just 8 per cent distribution, a 5 per cent share, 22 people and half-a-million dollars of bad debts. “Anyway, I figured it couldn’t get any lower, so my wife and I, with our two-year-old baby, moved to Hanoi,” he says. 

As the turnaround was happening, D’Souza was moved to the Philippines, where he worked with Varun Berry, the present MD of Britannia. D’Souza spent nine years in the Philippines in different roles, eventually taking over from Berry as country manager in 2009. “For both Coke and Pepsi, it’s in the top 10 markets. To put it in perspective, India’s per capita consumption of cola those days was 12, whereas in the Philippines it was 160 8-ounce bottles per head per year.” Then he was moved to Malaysia, running all of ASEAN barring the Philippines and Thailand, but got two exotic locations instead to manage — Mongolia and Guam, though both small markets.  

From Malaysia, he was set to be moved to Dubai, but was not happy about it; at the same time, Whirlpool, too, made an offer. “They said they wanted to change their fortunes at their listed company in India. The one big thing in life which I had not done was run a listed company, and a durables one at that,” he explains. Moving to Gurgaon, he spent the next five years with Whirlpool, “a fantastic and learning experience” for him.  

FMCG fix 

We’ve eaten our eggs and gulped our coffee, when the bearer comes by asking if we want refills. D’Souza plumps for masala chai and I ask for more of the heavenly filter coffee. A good time to segue to other topics. “Ah, coffee prices,” he says, rolling his eyes, bringing us back from nostalgia to his present charge, Tata Consumer. I note that in April he has completed five years at the helm of the company and ask how the experience has been. “Well, my wife says I’ve never looked happier,” he says with a wide smile.  

D’Souza recalls Tata Sons’ Chairman N Chandrasekaran’s comment to him in his first interview. He had said, “See, Sunil, we’ve got the most trusted brand name in the country. Consumer goods is a sector where we have a right to succeed. But still, when analysts talk about FMCG, Tata doesn’t count. Why is this? Trust means consumer, right?” That conversation left D’Souza with an onerous sense of responsibility.  

“It’s a great responsibility because you got to deliver if you’re given the authority. We’ve still got a long way to go, because the aspirations of the group are super-high. Resources are not an issue, and the ability to take risks on people is not an issue,” he says. 

Earlier this year, TCP acquired Capital Foods, makers of the desi Chinese brand Chings, and Organic India from Fab India. “Tea, salt, my core, and the international business, will all grow steadily in the 5-7 per cent range. Then brands like Capital, Soulful and Organic will drive the margins, though it’s a smaller addressable market. But, yes, we will get huge top-line gains from Sampann (pulses brand) and our ready-to-drink portfolio,” he explains.

Ask him about TCP’s premiumisation journey, much like other FMCG players, and he clarifies that India is both mass and premium, and brands have to cater to both. “If you take salt, we had a 30 per cent share and now we’re touching 40 per cent because we’ve got salt light, super light, rock salt, pink salt, then we’ve got salt with iron and zinc, we’ve got shakers. Value-added salts is about 10 per cent of my portfolio now, growing at about 30 per cent.”

TCP is putting money into building brands and premiumisation. “We’ve just launched Tetley green tea with L-Carnitine, an ingredient which is proven to deliver weight loss. Of course, in conjunction with diet and exercise,” he adds.

Expansion plans

The company will continue to focus on 5-plus per cent innovation-to-sales ratios, which would put it in the top league in India, he says, as the company prepares a host of new launches and expansions. In ready-to-drink beverages it launched Tata Lyfe, alkaline water with ph 7+, which is considered to be better for hydration, digestion and bone health. It will expand the ‘local spring’ brand Tata Spring Alive, while fine-tuning energy drinks, and expand into sports drinks. TCP, he says, will add more vending machines to gain a foothold in more institutions, while Sampann will add more pulses and chutney varieties, and Chings will expand its portfolio from Chinese to Korean foods as well. “Organic needs category expansion and building credibility fast, and we will rope in a brand ambassador soon,” he says.  

Ask him if he’s a big consumer of Chings, and he replies, “I like spice and spicy food and therefore, by extension, Chings. I love to eat just plain Schezwan ketchup and momo chutney. But since I travel a lot, my comfort food is mostly Indian and, when eating out, would prefer that.” Except when his daughters, Sarah and Sabina, are around. “They would always want to go to a non-Indian place, having eaten Indian at home.”

Both his daughters are in the US — the younger one majored in cancer biology and now works full time at a lab in Chicago on prostate cancer, while the older one will move to Chicago as well, for an MBA at Kelloggs. “Yes, we do miss them, so my wife Jyoti travels a couple of times to visit them in the US, while I try and catch up with them on my travels,” he says.  

Inspirations and ideas come from his penchant to be on the field with salespeople and talking to customers all the time. “The big inspirations are my bosses and my mentors, including Chandra and my previous bosses in PepsiCo,” he adds. A fitness fiend, he runs 5-6 km five days a week; and when on incessant travel, it’s the gym. And nothing like reading a good book before he hits the sack, says D’Souza, before he heads off for yet another packed day. 

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Published on May 10, 2025