British Consumer Products Giant Reckitt Benckiser named Rakesh Kappor as CEO

British consumer products giant Reckitt Benckiser on 14 April 2011 named its global marketing head Rakesh Kapoor as its new Chief Executive Officer. His appointment marked a rare appointment of an Indian to the helm of a marquee European corporate name. Rakesh Kapoor is a 25 year old veteran of household, health and personal-care company Reckitt Benckiser.

He succeeded Bart Becht, who will stay on as part-time adviser to Kapoor and the company's board till September 2012.

With the appointment Kapoor went on to become Executive Vice-President — Global Category Development and an Executive Committee member.

A B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from BITS, Pilani, and an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur, Kapoor started off at Network Ltd, an information technology start up that was part of Hindustan Computers Ltd, and joined Reckitt & Colman (as the company was then known) in 1987 as Regional Sales Manager, Northern India. He moved to the UK in 1997 as a Global Marketing Director and was appointed to the Executive Committee in 2006.

The UK-headquartered Reckitt Benckiser has 27000 employees worldwide and has operations in over 60 countries and sales in almost 200 countries. It reported revenues of Pound 8453 million in 2010. Its powerbrands include Dettol, Lysol and Clearasil.

Kapoor joined a select list of Indian-born CEOs of global corporations like- Indra Nooyi, Chairperson and CEO, PepsiCo, Vikram Pandit, CEO, Citigroup and Ajay Banga, CEO, MasterCard Worldwide.