Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages (HCCB) – one of India’s top FMCG companies - announced the appointment of Saba Sharma and Preeti Balwani as Chief Procurement Officer and General Counsel, respectively. Both Saba and Preeti will be part of the Senior Leadership Team that reports into CEO, Christina Ruggiero.  They will be based at the Company’s headquarters in Bengaluru.

Welcoming Saba and Preeti to HCCB, Christina Ruggiero, CEO, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, said, “At HCCB, we are making steady progress towards realising our goals as a top FMCG company of significant scale. We are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. In line with our talent strategy of building a diverse leadership pipeline, we welcome Preeti and Saba to HCCB. They are seasoned professionals in the FMCG space. I am sure their skills will be a positive value add to our growth ambitions”.

Prior to joining HCCB, Saba was with Procter & Gamble where she worked on Indian and international assignments. She is credited with developing talent and making procurement a sphere of competitive edge for the business. A management graduate from National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Saba is also an Electronics and Communications engineer. She has a passion for diversity and inclusion and has been a change leader in this domain. Saba’s mandate at HCCB is to work closely with business and drive transformation in the procurement function. With her multi-cultural and multi-geography experience in FMCG procurement spanning raw material, sales, marketing, media, IT, contract manufacturing and plant purchases, Saba brings in unique blend of knowledge and skill sets.

Preeti is a seasoned commercial lawyer with the experience of both in-house and private practice. She has served as a partner in law firms, prior to moving in-house, in her role as General Counsel and Executive Director at Kraft Heinz in India. In her career as an external counsel, Preeti has advised on several complex domestic and cross-border transactions across industries such as Life Sciences, Insurance, FMCG and Infrastructure. Preeti is an active member in the legal community and a member of the Indian Corporate Counsel Association (ICCA), International Bar Association (IBA) and the American Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC).