Stephen Remedios – Head - Trade & Customer Marketing - Personal Care & Modern Trade - Hindustan Unilever Ltd.

An Economics graduate from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata with a PGDM from XIMB, Stephen has spent over 6 years in sales & customer development, first as Area Sales Manager, Karnataka and then as a Regional Sales Manager for the South. He has also managed the CloseUp brand and set up the Customer Development Center of Excellence during his 10 year career with Unilever in India. He currently heads customer marketing for the personal care business and the modern trade channel. He is fascinated by the power of shopper insights and the impact they can have on influencing shopper decisions at the point of purchase.

Born in Hyderabad in 1979, Stephen spent a majority of his growing years in the south Indian temple city of Madurai. His fascination with sales and marketing began at an early age as he watched his father’s career with Madura Coats encompass numerous shifts and travels to many countries and cities. After junior college in a hill school in the Nilgiris he headed off to his father’s alma mater (St. Xavier’s Kolkata) to pursue a degree in Economics. Following a degree in Business Management he signed up for the famed HLL Management Training program.

The next 15 months saw him spend extensive time building a cross functional understanding of the FMCG business. After 5 months in MP spent understanding the company’s distribution system and sales structure, he shifted based to Bangalore to work on the Kwality Wall’s portfolio. He was part of the team that conceived and executed the Ek Din Ka Raja promotional campaign. 6 weeks were then spent in Jamunmadla, a small village 56 kms from Udaipur understanding and observing the rural customer from close quarters. After 4 weeks in the Detergent factory in Dapada, Silvassa and a 6 week stint with the Modern trade team in Unilever, Indonesia he was appointed Area Sales Manager for the ~180 Cr. Personal Products business in the state of Karnataka.

After a successful sales management assignment, he moved to the HLL Head Office in Mumbai as the Brand Manager of Closeup. During his time as brand manager he grew the brand in excess of 20% doubling top line and tripling bottom line in a 4 year period. He led the team that conceived the ‘Hasso, Toh Khule Hasso’ campaign and delivered share gain for the brand in the fiercely competed gel sub category of the tooth paste segment.

He then returned to the South as Regional Sales Manager, first for the ~3000 Cr. Urban HPC business and after a year following a restructuring became RSM for the entire Urban business. At the start of 2009, he moved to Mumbai to set up the Customer Development Center of Excellence to incubate vital projects to widen the gap in distribution with key competitors. After the roll out of key projects, he then moved to Head the Customer Marketing function for Personal Care and Modern Trade at the start of 2010.

He is married to Raynah Remedios, a former advertising professional from Ogilvy & Mather and now a full time mom and has two little sons – Aidan (3) and Dylan (1). He is an avid racquet sport enthusiast and never misses an opportunity to hit the courts. His passions include the human potential movement, behavioral economics, parenting, quizzing and Scrabble.