Procter & Gamble India has announced the appointment of Madhusudan Gopalan as new Managing Director and CEO. He will take charge from April 1. He is currently leading the P&G business in Indonesia where he has led strong sales growth, share turnaround, strong value creation and cash productivity.

Gopalan will take over from Al Rajwani, who is set to retire from the company after 37 years of service after the end of the financial year. Until his retirement, Rajwani will help in on boarding Gopalan on the India business and enable a smooth transition.

The company’sspokesperson, in an official communication, says, “During Rajwani’s tenure, over the last three years, the P&G business in India underwent a portfolio transformation that saw the company go from losing money to delivering triple digit-profit in a couple of years. In the first half of the company’s financial year 2017-18 ending December 2017, P&G has delivered double-digit sales growth with majority of the business growing share. P&G continues to be the market leader in most of the segments it operates in like baby diapers, blades and razors, feminine care, shave prep, health care, anti-ageing skincare and is No. 2 in shampoos and toothbrushes.”

Gopalan has more than 18 years of experience working for the company across business units and diverse geographies like India, US and ASEAN countries.

He started his career with P&G in India 1999 as a new hire in the sales function from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and worked in various locations across India, including being part of P&G’s first Modern Retail team in India. His first international assignment was to head P&G’s headquarters in the United States, where he worked with the P&G Wal-Mart business team.

He returned to India as the Head, Market, Strategic and Planning and oversaw the rapid growth of P&G’s business that grew 10 times in the space of a decade. He then moved to Indonesia as Head of Sales where he learnt to speak the local language, Bahasa Indonesia. Gopalan later assumed the position of ASEAN Commercial Leader based in Bangkok, where he oversaw the commercial category teams across all P&G ASEAN countries and helped set up P&G’s e-commerce business teams in the region. Madhu returned to Indonesia as the Head of P&G business, where he is responsible for developing P&G’s business, organisation and corporate reputation.