Eight leadership changes, dated and sourced. The two largest were both created by a departure rather than planned as a handover. Whatfix named a co-founder as chief executive a week after his co-founder died, and the board of HDFC Bank sent two names to the Reserve Bank of India for a job whose current holder has said he does not want it for a third term. The rest of the week was quieter and mostly internal: three companies promoted people who already worked there, a sovereign-anchored asset manager hired a fundraiser out of Singapore, and the body representing global pharmaceutical companies in India changed its president.
7 Sep
National Investment and Infrastructure Fund appointed Gauravjit Singh managing partner and global head of capital formation. He joins from PAG, where he was head of investor relations and fundraising for the private equity division in Singapore, and has two decades of experience raising institutional capital across global, India-focused and pan-Asian strategies. He inherits fundraising after a period the firm describes as momentum: about $3 billion in new equity commitments over two years, a $750 million first close on Private Markets Fund II against a $1 billion target, and a first close of ₹19,000 crore on Infrastructure Fund II against a ₹30,000 crore target. NIIF manages more than $7 billion across infrastructure, private markets, growth equity and climate. Source: Business Standard, 7 September 2026.
7 Sep
McCain Foods India appointed Aditya Krishna managing director. He succeeds Mainak Dhar, who the company says moves to an expanded leadership role, and is himself succeeded as commercial head by Avishek Kar. Krishna spent nearly two decades in sales and marketing at Mondelez International across India and South East Asia, then more than three years as commercial director at McCain India. Source: The Hindu BusinessLine, 7 September 2026.
8 Sep
Whatfix named co-founder Vara Kumar chief executive, effective immediately. He succeeds Khadim Batti, with whom he founded the company in 2014 and who died suddenly on 1 September. Kumar had been the architect of the company’s product and research strategy from the start. Whatfix says it serves 600 enterprises globally, including more than 80 Fortune 500 companies among them Shell, Schneider Electric, Mercedes-Benz, Heineken and UPS Supply Chain Solutions, and lists Warburg Pincus, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Dragoneer, Peak XV Partners, Eight Roads and Cisco Investments as investors. Source: company statement, 8 September 2026.
8 Sep
Honasa Consumer, which owns Mamaearth, appointed Nishchay Bahl chief business officer for its offline business, covering general trade, modern trade and other channels. He had spent nearly three years at the company as senior vice-president for offline revenue, and before that was chief business officer for offline at The Good Glamm Group and e-commerce director for South Asia at Reckitt. Co-founder and chief executive Varun Alagh presented the appointment as an example of internal talent development. The shares closed that day at ₹476.05 on the NSE, up more than 67 per cent for the year to date, on a price to earnings ratio of 61.32. Source: The Hindu BusinessLine, 8 September 2026.
9 Sep
Network18 elevated Ganesh Iyer to chief marketing officer from chief brand officer, putting branded content, intellectual property and marketing under him across EBN, ILC, News18 Studio, Firstpost, Moneycontrol, Network18 Connected and Creator18. Marketing heads across those brands take a dotted-line reporting relationship to him. In the same reshuffle Mihir Bhatt, who joined in April as chief content officer for News18 Studio, took an expanded remit as chief content officer for branded content. Source: exchange4media, 9 September 2026.
10 Sep
The Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India appointed Amitabh Dube its president for a two-year term, effective the same day. Dube is country president and managing director of Novartis India and has close to three decades in the industry. He takes over from Bhushan Akshikar, vice president and managing director of GSK Pharmaceuticals. The body represents global research-based pharmaceutical companies operating in India. Source: PTI, 10 September 2026.
11 Sep
Pinkvilla, now part of the Flipkart Group, appointed Vivek Mohan Sharma chief executive. He was most recently business head for youth, music and English at JioStar, running that portfolio across television and digital, and spent more than five years at Mirchi before that, including as head of its digital content business. He has also worked at Idea Cellular, Deutsche Bank and ICICI Bank. Founder Nandini Shenoy said the company was entering a new phase. Source: exchange4media and MediaNews4U, 11 September 2026.
12 Sep
Jimmy Tata was appointed a whole-time director of HDFC Bank, designated executive director, for three years from the date of Reserve Bank of India approval. He has been at the bank since 1994 and is currently its chief credit officer. The same board meeting re-appointed V. Srinivasa Rangan, a chartered accountant and former executive director and chief financial officer of HDFC Ltd, as an executive director for a single year from 23 November 2026, and created a fourth whole-time director position to be filled only once a new chief executive is in place. The board also sent two names to the Reserve Bank of India, in order of preference, for the managing director and chief executive job, on a three-year term. Neither candidate was disclosed. Source: Fortune India and PSU Connect, citing the bank’s disclosure under Regulation 30 of the SEBI listing rules, 12 September 2026.
Movements is a factual, dated record of leadership change in Indian business, published weekly. This edition covers the week of 7 September 2026, which closed on 13 September.