Direct selling company, Avon, which is struggling with its earnings in the US, recently rejected an unsolicited takeover offer of $10 billion by a much smaller beauty products company, Coty. In the midst of all the turmoil, Avon finally got a new CEO, Sherilyn S McCoy, replacing Andrea Jung, its first female CEO. Coinciding with the global development, its India business also got a new managing director (MD), Ujjwal Sankar Mukhopadhyay, who has been associated with Avon as director (supply chain) and has over 20 years of experience in consumer packaged goods and direct selling.
Mukhopadhyay replaced Hemant Singh, who spent three years with Avon India. Mukhopadhyay will focus on expansion and increasing the market share of the beauty products company, which has quadrupled its operations in the past three years. The Calcutta University graduate worked with Oriflame India, another beauty products company, from January 2004 to December 2008, before joining Avon India.
Hailing from Burnpur, his favourite quote from Shakespeare's Rs Macbeth' aptly describes his journey from Ramakrishna Mission Residential College, Narendrapur, in 1986 to being the Avon MD in 2012. His Facebook profile displays the quote he's so fond of: “To-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time”. He's also fond of movies—from 20,000 leagues under the sea to Hindi flicks like Guru, 3 Idiots and Sholay.