Britannia names Puneet Das CMO, elevates Siddharth Gupta

Britannia Industries has approved a set of senior marketing leadership changes, bringing in an external veteran to head the function while promoting an internal leader to a larger mandate.

The company’s board cleared the appointment of Puneet Das as Chief Marketing Officer effective February 16, 2026. At the same time, Siddharth Gupta has been elevated to Vice President – Marketing, with effect from February 1.

Das joins with more than two decades of experience across FMCG businesses in India and several international markets, including Africa, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Across previous roles, he has worked with companies such as Marico Limited, PepsiCo India, GSK Consumer Healthcare and Tata Consumer Products, managing brands that span beverages and nutrition.

For Britannia, the hire comes at a time when competition in packaged foods continues to intensify across both mass and premium segments. Large incumbents are under pressure to drive innovation faster, premiumise portfolios and build sharper brand differentiation in digital environments where discovery patterns are changing quickly.

A CMO with cross-category and cross-market exposure typically signals an intent to blend brand building with stronger commercial integration. Leaders who have handled diverse geographies are often tasked with modernising media strategy, upgrading consumer insight systems and tightening the link between innovation pipelines and communication.

Gupta’s elevation, meanwhile, underlines continuity. Since joining in 2018, he has been closely associated with the company’s core biscuit, wafer and snack businesses — areas that contribute a substantial share of overall revenues and remain central to distribution strength and scale advantages.

His background across brand management, strategy, innovation and sales suggests that Britannia is balancing external perspective with internal understanding of portfolios, margins and channel realities.

For marketers watching the sector, the twin moves reflect a familiar pattern in large FMCG organisations: bring in senior outside leadership to challenge legacy thinking, while expanding the remit of executives who understand the machinery from within.

The structure can help companies move faster without losing operational memory — a critical factor in categories where small shifts in pricing, pack architecture or promotional intensity can materially influence market share.

As food brands navigate rising input costs, evolving retail formats and fragmented consumer attention, leadership bandwidth in marketing becomes less about advertising alone and more about orchestrating growth across touchpoints.

Britannia’s reshuffle appears designed to prepare for that next phase.