Sachdeva previously served as Regional Operations Head – West at Reliance Brands, where he managed store launches, team development, business operations and performance optimisation for Pret A Manger.

He brings extensive experience across food and beverage and retail operations, having held leadership roles at Foodhall India, Nature’s Basket, Inditex, Reliance Brands and Lite Bite Foods. He has also ventured into entrepreneurship as Co-founder of Beyond Food and Big Chef Restaurant.

His expertise spans profit and loss management, multi-store operations, team leadership, inventory management and business expansion.

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Dhar brings extensive experience in brand management, marketing strategy, digital marketing and consumer engagement. Prior to joining CKE Restaurants, she served as Global Brand Lead at Domino’s. She has also held marketing positions at Yum! Brands, GSK and ITC Limited.

Her professional experience spans brand development, product innovation, integrated marketing campaigns and market expansion.

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In her new role, Hemani will oversee marketing and communications across Bastian Hospitality’s brands. The appointment marks an expansion of her earlier responsibilities within the company’s coffee business to a broader, portfolio-wide mandate.

Her expanded role comes as hospitality groups increasingly operate across multiple concepts and consumer segments, making integrated marketing strategies important for building consistent brand positioning and supporting growth across businesses.

The appointment was announced by Hemani in a LinkedIn post.

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The transition, as recommended by the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, follows the resignation of Mohit Malhotra from his role as Global Chief Executive Officer and Whole-time Director, effective November 13, 2026, to pursue personal interests.

With his elevation to the Board, Bhalla will continue to lead the growth agenda for the India business, representing the company and steering the strategic direction in its primary market.

PD Narang, who currently works as a Whole-time Director, will continue in his role as Group Director – Corporate Affairs, providing strategic guidance across the Dabur Group’s businesses including retaining oversight of the International Business.

Announcing the transition, Mohit Burman, Chairman of the Board, said, “On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Mr Malhotra for his over three decades of service to Dabur and his contribution to the organisation. We wish him the very best as he pursues his personal interests. Mr Bhalla’s elevation to the Board reflects our confidence in his leadership and the central role of the India business in Dabur’s growth. We are confident that Dabur’s  businesses, including the International Business, will continue to benefit from Mr. Narang’s strategic guidance, drawing on his four decades of experience with the Group. This planned transition clarifies leadership responsibilities and accountability while ensuring continuity as the Company advances its priorities and prepares for its next phase of growth.”

Bhalla joined Dabur in early 2026, bringing more than 25 years of experience in building brands, scaling businesses and driving sustainable growth across diverse geographies and business environments. He spent over 16 years at Unilever in management roles across India and international markets, followed by global leadership positions at The Hershey Company and METRO Cash & Carry India. He holds a B.Com. (Hons.) degree from Delhi University (1997) and an MBA from MDI Gurugram (2000).

Narang has been associated with Dabur from 1983 and brings over four decades of experience in corporate finance, strategic planning, capital markets, M&A and governance. A qualified professional with degrees and credentials including B.Com., FCA, FCS and AICWA, he has played a significant role in Dabur’s professionalisation, international expansion and major acquisitions.

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The appointment was approved by the company’s board at its meeting on November 2, 2026, following a recommendation from the Nomination and Remuneration Committee. Jawa’s tenure will extend until December 31, 2031, subject to shareholder approval. Marico will seek consent through a postal ballot, with details of the voting process and schedule to be announced separately.

Jawa brings more than 38 years of corporate leadership experience across consumer businesses in India, Southeast Asia and North Asia. His expertise spans business transformation, international expansion, brand building, digitalisation and premiumisation.

He joined HUL as Whole-time Director and President, Unilever South Asia, in April 2023 and was appointed Managing Director and CEO in June 2023. He held the role until July 2025 and also served on Unilever’s global executive leadership team, the Unilever Leadership Executive.

Before his India assignment, Jawa served as Chief of Transformation at Unilever in London, where he led an end-to-end transformation programme. He also served as Executive Vice President, North Asia, and Chairman of Unilever China, where he helped transform the business into Unilever’s third-largest global market through digitalisation, premiumisation, and portfolio development.

Earlier, as Chairman and CEO of Unilever Philippines, he oversaw the business’s emergence as one of the company’s top 10 markets globally. Jawa has also held several industry and institutional positions. In India, he was an Executive Member of the CII National Council and FICCI Executive Council, besides serving on the Executive Committee of Vikaasa, the UN SDG Accelerator in India.

His previous engagements include serving as founding secretary of Food Industry Asia in Singapore, Co-Chair of Grow Asia Philippines, a World Economic Forum initiative promoting inclusive agricultural business models, and a member of the Consumer Goods Forum China Board.

In its regulatory filing, Marico stated that Jawa is not related to any of its existing directors and is not disqualified from holding the position under any SEBI order or other regulatory authority. He currently holds no directorships, memberships, or chairpersonships of board committees in other companies.

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Tanridagli brings over 20 years of experience across Unilever and Kraft Foods/Mondelez. Most recently, he served as General Manager of Unilever Ice Cream, overseeing markets across the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Russia.

His experience in the ice cream category and international consumer markets is expected to support KWIL as it builds its independent business strategy and strengthens its position in India’s ice cream market.

The leadership appointment marks a new phase for KWIL as it focuses on brand execution, business growth and its operations as a standalone listed company.

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Shivakumar previously served as Chairman of RBA from January 2019 to January 2024. His career spans senior leadership positions at Unilever, Philips India, Nokia, PepsiCo India and the Aditya Birla Group.

He currently serves as an Operating Partner at Advent International and holds advisory and governance roles across several organisations, bringing expertise in business leadership and strategic growth to the company’s board.

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Her elevation comes as Tata Starbucks has crossed the 500-store mark in India, with its network reaching 505 stores across 81 cities as of early November 2026. The company added 23 net new stores during FY26 and another 13 during the first half of FY27. At the same time, the business has been showing improving growth momentum: revenue from operations rose 7% to Rs 1,367 crore in FY26, while the company’s net loss narrowed 27% to Rs 99 crore, from Rs 136 crore in FY25. Operational EBITDA stood at Rs 234 crore.

The momentum has continued into FY27. Revenue grew 11% in Q1 FY27 and accelerated to 15% in Q2 FY27, while the September quarter marked the brand’s fifth consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales growth. The numbers suggest that the next phase of Starbucks India’s story is not simply about adding more cafés, but about making the existing network increasingly productive while opening the right stores in the right markets.

From a Love for Coffee to a Larger Leadership Mandate

For Maheshwari, the promotion is also a natural progression of a career that has combined consumer marketing, brand building, youth culture and retail. Her association with Starbucks began with a personal affinity for coffee and the brand’s customer experience. In her own words, her love for coffee, marketing, experiences and food brought her to Tata Starbucks, where she had her first specialty coffee and experienced what she describes as the power of small customer moments.

That experience now sits at the centre of her professional mandate. “I’ve always believed that great marketing goes beyond building brands. It’s about understanding people, anticipating their needs and creating things that earn a place in their lives,” Maheshwari said while announcing her elevation.

Her career before Starbucks gives that philosophy an interesting dimension. Maheshwari spent more than 10 years with Red Bull, eventually becoming Head of Brand Marketing for India, after earlier roles as National Brand Manager, Assistant Brand Manager and Consumer Collecting Manager. She began her career at DDB Mudra Group, giving her exposure to both agency-side brand building and consumer marketing before moving into FMCG and then foodservice.

At Tata Starbucks, she joined in April 2024 as Head – Product & Marketing, before moving into the Director role in October 2026. Her expanded mandate now brings together product development, portfolio strategy and marketing—three functions that are becoming increasingly interconnected as India’s organised café market becomes more competitive.

Starbucks India’s Next Phase is About Quality of Growth

Tata Starbucks’ growth story has entered a different phase. The brand has spent years establishing the Starbucks experience across India’s major cities and building a national café network. It now has 505 stores across 81 cities, but its expansion blueprint has also evolved.

The company’s earlier ambition of reaching 1,000 stores by 2028 is being recalibrated around a more economically disciplined model. Instead of pursuing store count at any cost, the strategy increasingly focuses on geographic clustering, with the objective of having more than five stores in a city wherever the opportunity supports it. Such clustering can improve supply-chain efficiency, kitchen utilisation, delivery economics and operational productivity.

This is an important shift for the foodservice business. A café chain’s economics change materially when stores move from being isolated points of presence to a connected city network. Procurement, replenishment, delivery, manpower deployment, local marketing and customer frequency can all benefit from density.

The strategy is therefore becoming less about how many cities can Starbucks enter? and more about how deeply can Starbucks build a market once it enters?

The Product is Becoming the Bridge Between Global and Local

That is where Maheshwari’s product mandate becomes particularly important. Starbucks has to protect the global equity that makes the brand recognisable while making the menu feel increasingly relevant to the many different Indias it serves.

The approach has included products and flavours that connect with Indian preferences, including Malabari Coconut Chai, Cardamom Chai and regional food pairings such as Paneer Tikka Sandwiches. The introduction of the Picco 6 oz size is another example of localisation—not by changing the Starbucks proposition fundamentally, but by adapting portion size and entry pricing to Indian consumption habits.

The strategy also extends to coffee itself. While Starbucks continues to draw on its global coffee heritage, the use of beans from India’s Coorg coffee-growing region allows the brand to bring local provenance into its product narrative.

For Maheshwari, the challenge is therefore not simply to launch new products. It is to build a portfolio architecture in which global familiarity and local relevance coexist without compromising the aspirational positioning of Starbucks.

Making Premium Coffee More Accessible Without Making it Ordinary

The Picco launch illustrates this tension particularly well. India’s café market has become crowded with chains offering increasingly aggressive pricing, promotions and value-led propositions. Starbucks’ response has not been to abandon its premium positioning, but to create more accessible entry points within the existing experience.

The smaller format gives consumers an opportunity to enter the Starbucks ecosystem at a lower price point while retaining the brand’s store environment, service proposition and visual identity. It is a form of accessible premiumisation rather than discount-led acquisition.

That distinction could become increasingly important as the organised café market expands beyond the traditional urban consumer. Starbucks needs to attract new consumers without training its customer base to wait for discounts. Product architecture, portion sizes, local flavours and format innovation can therefore become more powerful growth tools than purely promotional pricing.

The Experience Remains the Real Differentiator

For Starbucks, however, the product has always been only one part of the proposition. The larger competitive advantage lies in the experience around the cup.

Maheshwari’s own description of her first Starbucks experience—particularly the interaction with a barista who told her, “If you don’t like it, I’ll make it right”—captures the philosophy. The interaction is small, but it reinforces the idea that Starbucks is selling hospitality and belonging alongside coffee.

That philosophy has also shaped the brand’s marketing. The #ItStartsWithYourName campaign, for example, used Starbucks’ familiar cup-naming ritual to explore identity, inclusion and human connection. Instead of communicating only product attributes or price promotions, the campaign sought to make the café a space associated with personal stories and emotional connection.

For a foodservice brand operating in an increasingly competitive category, that emotional equity can become a valuable moat. Coffee can be replicated. Store formats can be replicated. Menu categories can be replicated. But the accumulated relationship between a customer and a brand is harder to copy.

From Red Bull’s Youth Culture to Starbucks’ Coffee Culture

Maheshwari’s Red Bull experience is particularly relevant here. During more than a decade with the energy drink brand, she worked across consumer collecting, brand management and ultimately brand marketing, gaining experience in building communities and cultural relevance around a product that goes far beyond its functional proposition.

At Starbucks, the cultural canvas is different but the underlying marketing challenge is similar: how does a global product become part of everyday consumer life?

Her mandate at Starbucks now involves building products and stories for what she describes as the “many Indias within India”. That is increasingly important as Starbucks expands beyond the largest metropolitan markets and encounters consumers with different taste preferences, spending patterns, occasions and cultural contexts.

Local Stores for Local Consumers

The localisation strategy is also visible beyond the menu. Starbucks has been using local artists for store murals and city-specific merchandise, including customised mugs linked to cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi.

Such interventions may appear small compared with store openings and financial performance, but they contribute to a larger strategic objective: making a global chain feel like a local neighbourhood institution.

That becomes increasingly relevant as the network expands. A Starbucks in a premium Mumbai business district does not necessarily need to communicate in exactly the same way as a Starbucks in a fast-growing Tier-II city. Local art, merchandise, food preferences and community connections can help the brand retain its global identity while creating a stronger sense of local ownership.

Premium Formats Add Another Layer

At the other end of the product and experience spectrum, Tata Starbucks is also continuing to invest in premium formats. The first half of FY27 saw the addition of two Starbucks Reserve stores, strengthening the company’s prestige positioning and giving the brand a platform for more elevated coffee experiences.

This creates an interesting portfolio architecture: accessible products such as Picco can bring new consumers into the ecosystem, mainstream Starbucks cafés can build frequency and everyday consumption, while Reserve formats can strengthen coffee credentials and premium brand equity.

The challenge for the product and marketing organisation is to make these layers work together rather than allowing them to fragment the brand.

The Business Behind the Brand

The timing of Maheshwari’s promotion is ultimately as much about business performance as it is about marketing. Tata Starbucks has demonstrated improving financial momentum while continuing to expand its network.

The numbers point towards a business that is trying to achieve something more difficult than rapid expansion: growth with improving economics. The reduction in losses, operational EBITDA and sustained same-store sales growth suggest that the company is increasingly focused on productivity within the network even as it continues to add stores.

That makes the product and marketing function critical. New products need to generate incremental visits, existing products need to encourage frequency, regionalisation needs to widen the customer base, and marketing needs to strengthen both brand affinity and commercial outcomes.

Building the Next Chapter of India’s Coffee Culture

Maheshwari’s promotion comes at a time when India’s coffee market is entering a more interesting and competitive phase. International chains, Indian specialty coffee brands, premium cafés, quick-service operators and independent coffeehouses are all competing for increasingly diverse consumption occasions.

For Starbucks, the answer is unlikely to be a single new beverage or another store-count milestone. It will be the combination of product innovation, regional relevance, customer experience, network density and disciplined expansion.

Maheshwari’s expanded role brings these pieces together. Her brief is to blend Starbucks’ global heritage with Indian preferences, make the portfolio more accessible without diluting its premium credentials, and create experiences that turn coffee consumption into a habit rather than an occasional indulgence.

As she put it while announcing her promotion, the opportunity ahead is to “build great products for the many Indias within India, tell authentic stories that connect with consumers, create meaningful experiences and, ultimately, drive impact on both brand and business.”

For Tata Starbucks, that could be the most important shift of all: the next phase of India’s coffee story will not be won simply by opening more cafés, but by giving consumers more reasons to return to them.

The post Mitali Maheshwari Elevated to Director – Product & Marketing at TATA Starbucks as Coffee Giant Balances Growth, Product and Profitability appeared first on Business of Food.

He was previously working as Chief Financial Officer at the company. Zaveri will report to Rajeev Varman, Whole-Time Director and Group CEO of Restaurant Brands Asia.

His previous roles include CFO positions at Nature’s Basket and Tata Starbucks. He began his career as General Manager – Finance at The Indian Hotels Company.

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Narsaria announced his appointment on LinkedIn, describing the move as a new beginning as he takes on responsibilities across the business’s southern operations.

Star Bazaar operates under Trent Hypermarket, a Tata and Tesco enterprise. The retailer’s proposition centres on fresh produce, private labels and a curated product assortment, supported by competitive pricing and a focus on consistent quality.

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