Currently Heading the procurement for McCain India, Venkatraghavan comes with almost 2 decades of hardcore procurement experience cutting across Automotive sector, FMCG sector and an added consulting stint with Accenture Stretegy. He predominantly has worked with food companies like Nestle, Mondelez, Yum Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, Tacobell) before his current position with the French Fries leader.
A mechanical engineer by background, started his career with an automotive firm working as a strategic sourcing lead for the south India based commercial vehicle manufacturer. Having had three years of corporate experience, he delved into his MBA in operations from SPJIMR, Mumbai and joining as the indirect procurement manager for Nestle and within a span of three years got elevated to head the procurement excellence function as the youngest leader. Post his stint with the food giant, he worked as a senior consultant in Accenture strategy – India business advising multiple clients on enhanced procurement processes, creating a simplified and efficient procurement system. One of his biggest contributions was leading the planning and sourcing consultation module post the merger of Sun pharma and Ranbaxy, streamlining the process between the two large diverse organizations.
He went back to the FMCG sector, joining Mondelez as the head of Best Cost Country Sourcing, a global role where he worked in identifying cost optimization projects across the entire organization. Within a short while he had worked on multiple projects like integrating Amazon Business to digitize the tail spend sourcing in US & Germany, implementation of liquid Nitrogen fueled vehicles in UK and implementing IOT enabled Warehouse automations in India. Post the successful stint in the role, he had moved into leading Dairy sourcing for Asia, Middle East and Africa comprising of more than 13 countries including ones as diverse as Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, China and India. He had setup a complete green-field dairy processing unit in South Africa working on the entire sourcing strategy of fresh milk in a Zero-sum game market where availability was a huge challenge. He not only delivered the project on time but also had huge cost saving delivered against the plan helping the business in South Africa be competitive and successful. He was instrumental in setting up a costing model for Dairy powders in India, a market that is extremely fragmented with limited market intelligence available, thus generating visibility for the business
Post Mondelez, he led the supply chain for KFC, working with two of the largest franchisees, both of which are listed companies in India. He entered at a time where poultry inflation was the highest it had ever been and worked with suppliers to mitigate the cost impact to the business and also develop additional capacity to drive competitive benchmarking and generate additional savings to the business. He revamped the entire new product development process to ensure faster time to market to beat the competition in an extremely competitive Quick Service Restaurant space. He developed 3-year strategies, bringing varied stakeholders together with clear alignment on marketing calendar on campaigns. Being the largest buyer in India for poultry with limited organized players in the processing space, he grew the capacity by close association with the poultry business leadership.
Currently in his position as Head of Procurement in McCain Foods Limited, he handles a regional role in a largely agriculture driven industry. He has been instrumental in ideating new processes and ensuring price competitiveness in the most price sensitive customer base. In India, he is a known name amongst the food supplier base and is held in high regards for being fair and transparent.
