Sanjiv Puri

Sanjiv Puri became chairman and managing director of ITC Limited in 2019, leading one of India's most iconic conglomerates. ITC's core asset is its cigarettes business, which commands approximately 75% of India's organized cigarette market and generates exceptional profit margins — funding the company's diversification into faster-growing but lower-margin businesses. The cigarette business produces the cash that Puri redeploys into FMCG (Aashirvaad, Sunfeast, Bingo, Classmate), hotels (ITC Hotels, one of India's largest luxury chains), paperboards, and agri-business. Puri's most ambitious initiative is building ITC's FMCG business into a national champion. The non-cigarette FMCG segment has grown to over ₹20,000 crores in revenue, with brands like Aashirvaad (India's leading flour brand), Sunfeast (biscuits), and Bingo (snacks) gaining significant market share. He has also accelerated ITC's sustainability credentials, making the company one of the few large conglomerates globally that is carbon-positive, water-positive, and solid waste recycling-positive. Puri's management of the delicate balance between the highly profitable but socially controversial cigarettes business and the faster-growing FMCG, hotels, and agri-businesses is the key factor for investors. Tobacco taxation policies, FMCG market share gains, and the trajectory of hotel margins post-pandemic are the primary drivers of ITC's stock price.