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About
At 64, Marico Ltd’s patriarch Harsh Mariwala is a hands-off boss, leaving day-to-day operations of the Rs 5,000-crore Fast moving consumer goods firm to a CEO. A golfer, he is busy writing a book, managing the company’s CSR initiatives and its investment arm. Consumer goods veteran, Harsh Mariwala chairs Marico Limited, best known for its Parachute hair oil & Saffola cooking oil. Mr. Harsh Mariwala’s entrepreneurial drive and passion for Innovation, enthused him to establish the Marico Innovation Foundation in 2003. Under the stewardship of an eminent Board, the Foundation acts as a catalyst to fuel innovation in India.

Personal Life
After graduating in 1971, Mr Mariwala joined the family business, which is working for the Bombay Oil Company that manufactures edible oil. In 1975, he pushed the branding part of the company and saw the importance of creating brands at that time. This was his first step towards diversification. Branding felt like the need of the hour and showed promises of sustainability, profitability and marginalisation. As this was a family run business, he had grown up around work and even when in college, he often visited the office. A commerce graduate from the University of Mumbai, he decided not to pursue a postgraduate degree and felt it was difficult to take out time from work. In 1990, he started Marico, which though was a spin-off from the family business but was a completely separate culture and required new talent. As the company started growing, they worked on strengthening their market presence by carefully selecting distributors and strengthening the company by hiring talented professionals.

Marico & its brands
Marico’s products and services in the beauty and wellness space have produced brands such as Parachute, Saffola, Hair and Care, Nihar, Shanti, Mediker, Revive, HairCode and Kaya Limited popular in every household. Mariwala's leadership and passion to excel has lead the company to vouch for the fact that one out of every four Indians is a Marico consumer.

Under Harsh Mariwala's leadership, Marico was awarded the NDTV Profit 'Best Business Leadership' Award in the FMCG (Personal Hygiene) category, in 2007 and 2009, and was rated as one of India’s Most Innovative companies by the Business Today – Monitor Group Innovation Study (2008).

Parachute
A market leader in the hair category and one of Marico’s oldest brands, Parachute Coconut Oil today stands for purity and quality. Over the years, the brand has seen a lot of innovations in packaging, sizing and tamper-proofing. Parachute enjoys enormous loyalty in urban, semi-urban and rural market.

Saffola
Saffola is a health care brand. Its portfolio spans product categories-edible oils, functional foods and salt. For the last 10 years, Saffolalife has been educating Indians on preventive heart care through the year. Since risk factors of Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) start early in India and prevention of these diseases requires an integrated life course approach, Saffola has over the years built an ecosystem which works actively towards adopting a healthier lifestyle.

Kaya
With Kaya, Marico identified a gap and huge potential in the wellness and beauty sector in India and launched into this skincare segment. Understanding consumers and their behaviour is very important when one launches a new product. It is important to define growth opportunities and study the international market before launching internationally.