Post retirement, nutritional science will be focus: Vinita Bali

After spending around nine years as managing director at Britannia Industries, Vinita Bali  will retire on March 31. Post the company’s board meeting on Tuesday, Britannia said Bali will retire to pursue a variety of roles in the corporate and development sectors. Bali will continue to serve on boards of the other Wadia Group companies. 

Soon after retiring from Britannia’s board, outgoing managing director Vinita Bali took time off to discuss her future plans with Dev Chatterjee. Excerpts:  

You took over Britannia at a time when the company was just coming out of a management crisis. Looking back, how will you rate your tenure at the company?  

I had a great stint with Britannia. The company grew across all segments and parameters and I enjoyed my time there. Going forward, I want to do other things in life which I was unable to pursue, especially in the field of nutrition. I don’t want to do in the next 20 years what I did in the last 20 years.  

You are on the board of several Wadia Group companies and of course, on the board of Swiss major Syngenta, will you continue there? btw. there  

Yes, I will continue to remain on the board of Wadia Group companies and on the global board of Syngenta. The United Nations has just extended my tenure for another two years for its nutrition programe, so that will also occupy a lot of my time.  

I am also on the board of Crisil, the advisory board of World Gold Council and on CornellUniversity’s Division of Nutritional Sciences Advisory Board. There is a lot of work which needs to be done in the nutritional science field and I intend to spend my time on these issues.  

One of your mission statements in Britannia was to continue the high double digit growth rates, do you think you succeeded?

Well, you can see the numbers.