More beauty, more wellbeing, more India: Unilever CEO Fernandez outlines bold priorities

Unilever’s new CEO Fernando Fernandez has put India front and center of the FMCG giant’s future strategy, calling it the “only large exponential volume growth opportunity in the globe” and vowing sharper execution across brands, markets, and channels.

Speaking at the Barclays Global Consumer Staples Conference 2025, Fernandez outlined his seven clear priorities: “More Beauty, more Wellbeing, more Personal Care, more premium, more ecommerce, more US, more India. And our money is going following these priorities. You can like it. You cannot like it, but we are very clear about what we want to do.”

India: “What China has been for our competitors”

Fernandez stressed India’s centrality to Unilever’s growth story, “India is the other anchor of our business. We have incredible positions in India and we believe that India will be for Unilever what China has been for some of our competitors in the last decade. This is the only large exponential volume growth opportunity in the globe. And we have incredible positions. More than 50% share in hair care, in skin care in functional foods, in dishwash. 45% share in laundry. 37% share in skin cleansing. In all these categories we are two to four times our closest competitor.”

He added, “We have made decisive changes in terms of leadership there. The leader of the business now has been my Chief Marketing Officer in Beauty. You know, we are very, very confident that with the changes also in the economy of India, I believe that there are some significant stimulus going there, this should be one key growth area for Unilever in the future.”

The portfolio is also shifting with acquisitions like Minimalist and Oziva

“These two business together will be around €100 million by the end of this year, and growing I will not tell you double digit, it’s just much more than that,” he said.
Unilever is digitising its India distribution as well:

“We reached 9 million stores in India, 3 million stores directly, you know. We are digitising. We have the best digital platform for traditional trade coverage in India and we believe this is a very significant competitive advantage for us,” he added.

Resetting the model

Fernandez acknowledged past inconsistencies.

“We have been inconsistent in defining volume growth as our fundamental metric, you know. I think very, very differently. I believe that what gives relevance to a company is to grow volume every single year,” he said.

Unilever has cut 18% of its white-collar workforce, reset accountability into 44 P&L units, and is focusing on 30 “Power Brands” that already deliver 75% of revenue.

“By the end of 2024, we have 200. But 30 Power Brands concentrating 75% of our revenue. They are accretive in volume growth. We delivered 3.8% volume growth last year in these 30 Power Brands,” Fernandez added.

Building “sassy” brands, measuring execution

Marketing will be rooted in what Fernandez calls “desire at scale” and “market making.”

“Desire at scale is anchored in what we call the development of SASSY brands. S of Science for superior functionality. A of premium Aesthetics. S of Sensorial experiences. S of Said by others. Very, very, very important. And Y for Young spirited brands that remain contemporary.”

He cited Dove and Vaseline as proof points.

“Dove is our biggest brand. It's a 7 billion revenue brand. It has been growing last year 8% in volume this year, close to 5% in volume. And probably the most impressive one is Vaseline. You know, Vaseline is a 155 year old brand. It was sleeping for many, many years. In the last three years, we have added 400 million into this brand. You know 10% volume growth in ‘24. 11% volume growth this year in volume,” Fernandez said.

Execution, he said, is ruthlessly codified.

“We have developed a proprietary model based in public information and in proprietary data of Unilever. We call it a Unmissable Brand Superiority (UBS) framework. 23 metrics around the six P’s that we measure with absolute clarity. We have now defined 9 very clear metrics for offline execution, 11 metrics for online execution. If I can remember this by memory, imagine my people in the ground,” he said.

E-commerce and future focus

Digital is now 20% of Unilever’s business (30% in Beauty & Wellbeing). Fernandez said, “We are making US the hub for Amazon development. We are making China the hub for TikTok shop development, and we are making India the hub for quick commerce development. We are learning in these markets and rolling out quickly.”

Clear financial guardrails

The CEO reiterated financial discipline.

“We will deliver what we promised for this year, we will deliver between 3 and 5% in our USG. We expect to deliver an underlying operating margin of at least 18.9%… We have absolute clarity about this model that we need to be top third TSR in the sector. You know we need to deliver consistently 2 plus percent volume growth. We need to deliver a modest margin improvement based on a consistent gross margin expansion,’ Fernandez said.

And he closed on a note of culture and ambition, “You can expect that we will go for more Beauty, more Wellbeing, more Personal Care. We will disproportionately invest behind US and India. We will play to win, and we will do it, making desire at scale the core of our strategy,” he added.