Beer giant UB appoints former Walmart executive as its Chief of Corporate Affairs

United Breweries, the country’s biggest brewer that sells Kingfisher, has appointed Anand Vijay Jha as senior vice president and chief of corporate affairs. Jha will be responsible for heading public policy, government relations, corporate communications, philanthropy, CSR and UB’s ESG (environmental, social and governance) initiatives.
Jha’s last stint was at Walmart India as senior vice president and chief of corporate affairs officer. The former civil servant also has about two decades of experience of working with ministries, departments and regulatory bodies including the Competition Commission of India. Jha has played a key roles in setting up and operationalisation of RLDA, a statutory body responsible for raising revenue through non-tariff measures such as commercial leasing of government land.

He holds an MBA in strategy from Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) (University of Delhi), a L.L.B. from Campus Law Centre (University of Delhi) and L.L.M. in international trade and commercial laws from Durham University (United Kingdom).

Currently, Jha is a member of Oxford University’s corporate affairs academy. He is a regular visiting faculty in law and business schools and public administration institutions in the country.

Last August, UB had appointed Rishi Pardal as the company’s new managing director.

In the third quarter ended December, Heineken-controlled UB had reported a net profit increase of 18% to Rs 126.37 crore from Rs 106.37 crore a year earlier and a 5.73% decline in net sales at Rs 3,069.15 crore against Rs 3,255.97 crore a year earlier.