TURBOCHARGED

Sanjiv Puri has broadened ITC's reach well beyond cigarettes. The demerger of its hotels business shows the firm's push to keep the growth engine well oiled

- Sourav Majumdar & Krishna Gopalan

DESPITE A BUSY work schedule, Sanjiv Puri is particular about two things: he begins each day with 30 minutes of meditation and ends it with 45 minutes of yoga, regardless of where he is.

The meditation and yoga help Puri, 61, the Chairman and MD of ITC, steer the company's diverse businesses. Since he took charge as MD in May 2018 and Chairman a year later, ITC has grown rapidly across segments, be it on revenue, profitability, or market share. The ITC stock, which the markets did not warm up to for many years, has surged over the last 24 months by 86.18%. For a company primarily associated with cigarettes, the growth in its FMCG business has placed it in the industry's top deck. Last year, ITC announced the much-expected demerger of its ₹2,600-crore hotel business, allowing investors to participate in another business.

Other pieces in the ITC story-agri, paperboards, paper and packaging, and information technology-are interestingly poised. The synergy between businesses often becomes a strategic differentiator. The ability to innovate and build on a robust backend is expected to write the next chapter of ITC's growth story.

CONSUMER TECH

One loses count of the times Puri mentions "digital" during our two-hour conversation. In his elegant room at ITC's Virginia House headquarters in Kolkata, he says digital has to be mainstreamed. "For us, it must be as pertinent as any manager looking at his email. Everyone must be upskilled, and we already have the infrastructure," says Puri, winner in the Large Companies category of the BT-PWC India's Best CEOs ranking.