Bira 91 has announced three key appointments to its executive leadership team. Ex-Chief Financial Officer of General Motors India, Vinay Jain, joins the company as the Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President – Finance and will be leading the global finance function of the company.
Sudhir Jain, former Senior Director, Supply Chain, Molson Coors India will be leading the company’s manufacturing operations.
Thomas Hartman, Anheuser Busch InBev’s New York-based ZX Ventures’ former Global Innovation Brewer, will join the company as Vice President – Innovation Brewing.
Jain has spent more than 10 years at General Motors starting out at the company HQ in New York and has held several positions in the company including capital planning, M&A, global treasury and led some multi-billion dollar projects on corporate debt, capital planning and also supported with the management of the General Motors’ IPO process. Having completed his MBA from Duke University, he has been part of the leadership team of General Motors India for the last four years, most recently as the CFO and company director of India operations. At Bira 91, Jain will be taking care of the company’s global finance function.
Hartman most recently was a global innovation brewer at AB-InBev’s ZX Ventures and was based out of New York City where he was responsible for new product development. At ABI, Hartman also specialized in cross brewing and was responsible for ensuring product consistency and quality across the 27 global craft breweries. At Bira 91, Hartman will be responsible for the company’s product innovation pipeline and will manage the company’s worldwide brewing function.
Sudhir Jain is an industry veteran and has over 35 years of experience in manufacturing and supply chain across automotive, soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. Most recently he was the Senior Supply Chain Director for Molson Coor’s India business. He also headed the manufacturing operations of Associated Blenders and Distillers (ABD) one of the largest alco-beverage companies in India with over 40 plants. He spent over six years at United Breweries leading the Division Manufacturing for South and West India (over 17 plants) and also spent 10 years at Pepsico. At Bira 91, Sudhir Jain will be responsible for handling the end-to-end manufacturing function and will also be responsible for creating the company’s strategic manufacturing footprint.
Speaking of the appointment, Ankur Jain, Founder & CEO of one of the fastest growing beer brands, Bira 91, said, “These three key appointments are a step-change in our company’s ability to innovate and execute at scale. We are positioning ourselves for defendable market leadership over the next decade in India and meaningful execution across international markets. At the same time, we expect to continue to lead the market in product innovation bringing the freshest and tastiest brews to our consumers. These appointments give us the ability to be ahead of our competition, inspire and attract the highest quality global talent to our company and bring the best to our consumers.”
Bira 91 grew five times in the last fiscal year and has scaled to be a contender to the top 10 craft breweries in the US in terms of volume in only three years since its inception
