WOMAN SPECIAL......... BRANDY BRAND DIRECTOR PUSHPANJALI BANERJI

BRANDY BRAND DIRECTOR PUSHPANJALI BANERJI Raising the Bar As brand director of brandy major Kyndal, Pushpanjali Banerji is on a mission to change the perception about the liquor industry in India     What’s common between the drinks industry and bars? Both are dominated by men. So it was at a bar that Pushpanjali Banerji, the scion of premium spirits and liquor manufacturer and distributor Kyndal, decided that her baptism in the drinks industry will be. The bar in question was as stereotypical as it could get — a small, dingy, dimly-lit outlet in Bangalore where she sat for hours buying drinks for customers who dropped by for a survey of brandy labels for Lucas BOLS, the Dutch company, Kyndal’s partner.     “There is no better way to understand the liquor market than to visit small bars and see what people are drinking,” says Banerji. Bars, she says, are where she cut her teeth.     Today, thanks to the innumerable visits for market research of products and those of competitors, bars have turned into a comfort zone. Banerji has sat for hours to find out what customers are drinking. There have been times, she says, when she was asked to leave because the owners felt it was not safe. Glass Ceiling The ‘safety’ issue, albeit from the prism of success, could well apply to the wines and spirits industry in India because it has long been a male bastion. But Banerji , 26, is sanguine about her prospects.     That is thanks largely to her pedigree. Banerji’s father Siddharth, a 30-year veteran in the liquor business who earlier worked as sales director of Scottish alcoholic beverages major Whyte & Mackay (now owned by United Breweries) and at Jim Beam. Her first brush with promotional activities for liquor brands came when she was just 17. As a child, she accompanied Siddharth to whisky distilleries in Scotland during vacations, gaining first-hand knowledge about the region and its distilleries.     Siddharth approached her to work on a promotion for a Whyte & Mackay brand with guests at a five-star hotel in Delhi. “I recall wearing a kilt and going from table to table answering questions and distributing free movie tickets among those who bought our brand.”     In 2006, Siddharth led the management buyout of Kyndal. Banerji, a journalism and mass communications graduate, had just finished an internship with advertising agency Publicis then. The buyout banished all doubts about pursuing a career in the liquor business.     Banerji joined the business as a trainee (she is now brand director of Kyndal India) along with elder brother Prateek. The first assignment was the launch of Absolut Vodka, which was then a part of Kyndal’s portfolio, in the Indian market. “It was our team which helped take sales to 60,000 cases in a few months. Today it is one of the most popular vodka brands in India,” she says.     These days, Banerji’s main challenge is to create Indiaspecific packaging for products in the 180 ml bottles category. Kyndal is currently the biggest manufacturer and distributor of premium brandy in southern India. Ready for the Long Haul But Banerji has her task cut out thanks to Kyndal’s grand ambitions. The group recently entered into a partnership with Scottish firm John Fergus to build a whisky distillery and warehouse for £ 6.7 million at Fife in Scotland. “This is a long-term game for us and we will be developing our own single malt brands which would take at least 10 years. We are looking at India and other markets such as Africa and would be launching premium Scotch and ad-mix brands in these markets,” she says.     Indeed, Kyndal is looking to acquire brands in the premium blended scotch segment. For Banerji, this would mean a lot of travel, especially to Scotland where the new distillery will be coming up. “But I am also focussed on our brands in the Indian business which is growing at double-digits year-on-year,” she says.     Overall, Kyndal sells 5-6 lakh cases of brandy annually in India, including its domestic brands such as BOLS XO Excellence.     Along with growing her business, Banerji is also keen to change the social perception of the liquor industry in India through responsible marketing and promotional activities. “I represent Kyndal group at the Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies and am working with other liquor manufacturers to change the perception about the dark underbelly of our industry,” she says.     What better way to do that than the presence of a woman leading a liquor company? • High Spirits Kyndal India is an importer, maker and distributor of premium spirits in the Indian sub-continent and West Asia Siddharth Banerji, earlier with Whyte & Mackay and Jim Beam, led the management buyout of Kyndal in 2006 Kyndal group now includes BOLS Kyndal, a JV with Lucas BOLS, and Kyndal India Kyndal India has been promoting brandy, the third largest spirits category in India after whisky and rum. It is the largest maker of premium brandy in the South Kyndal India’s brands include BOLS Premier XO Excellence brandy; Bowmore Islay single malt whisky and Vaccari Sambuca liqueur Recently, the group entered into a JV with John Fergus & Co of Scotland to set up a malt distillery in Scotland

:: Ishani Duttagupta ET131020