Mars Snacking has named Sonali Roychowdhury as Chief People & Organisation Officer for the AMEA region. A globally experienced People & Culture leader, she brings over 25 years of expertise across multinationals, with a strong track record in organisational transformation, M&A integration, and human-centric leadership.
Mars Snacking has appointed Sonali Roychowdhury as Chief People & Organisation Officer for the AMEA region, a move that underscores the company’s focus on strengthening its people strategy across one of its most diverse and fast-evolving markets. With responsibility spanning Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, Roychowdhury steps into a role that sits at the intersection of growth, cultural integration, and organisational transformation at a time when the global snacking business is navigating scale, complexity, and rapid change.
Roychowdhury brings with her more than 25 years of experience as a senior People and Culture leader across some of the world’s most influential multinational organisations. Her career has been shaped by deep exposure to varied geographies and operating environments, having lived and worked extensively across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. This international grounding has given her a nuanced understanding of how culture, leadership, and organisational design must adapt to local realities while remaining aligned with global strategy—an essential capability for a region as heterogeneous as AMEA.
Over the course of her career, Roychowdhury has held senior leadership roles at Procter & Gamble, Kellanova (formerly Kellogg Company), and Mars. Across these organisations, she has been closely involved in periods of transformation that required both strategic clarity and human sensitivity. Her work has ranged from organisational scale-ups in high-growth markets to complex, end-to-end mergers and acquisitions, as well as large-scale integrations. Most recently, she played a pivotal role in the integration of Kellanova into Mars, a significant milestone that brought together distinct organisational cultures, systems, and ways of working under a unified structure.
That experience is particularly relevant to her new mandate at Mars Snacking. The AMEA region encompasses markets at very different stages of maturity, from established economies to emerging ones experiencing rapid demographic and economic shifts. Managing talent, leadership pipelines, and organisational effectiveness across such a landscape demands more than standardised solutions. It requires an approach that balances global governance with local empowerment, ensuring that people strategies support both performance and long-term sustainability.
Roychowdhury’s remit as Chief People & Org Officer will cover a broad spectrum of responsibilities. These include culture and leadership alignment, workforce and operating model design, talent attraction and retention, governance, and change management. A recurring theme in her career has been the focus on value protection and value creation during transitions—whether those transitions involve rapid expansion, restructuring, or integration following acquisitions. In an industry where brands, supply chains, and consumer expectations are constantly evolving, the ability to guide organisations through change without eroding engagement or capability is increasingly seen as a competitive advantage.
Colleagues and peers often describe Roychowdhury as an internationally fluent executive who combines commercial discipline with cultural intelligence. She is known for grounding people decisions in business realities while maintaining a human-centric leadership style that emphasises empathy, inclusion, and trust. This balance has become especially important as organisations rethink how they work in the aftermath of global disruptions, shifting employee expectations, and accelerated digitalisation. For Mars Snacking, which has long positioned itself as a purpose-led, family-owned business, aligning performance with people-centric values remains a core part of its identity.
Beyond her corporate leadership roles, Roychowdhury is also an active investor and advisor to HR technology startups. This involvement gives her an external lens on the rapidly changing HR technology landscape, from digital platforms that enhance employee experience to advanced analytics that inform workforce planning and decision-making. Her exposure to emerging tools and ideas is expected to support Mars Snacking’s efforts to advance digital HR transformation across the AMEA region, helping the organisation leverage data and technology to build more agile, responsive people systems.
Her appointment comes at a time when people leadership is being redefined. The traditional boundaries of HR have expanded to include organisational design, culture stewardship, leadership development, and the orchestration of change at scale. In regions like AMEA, these responsibilities are amplified by demographic diversity, regulatory complexity, and differing social and cultural norms. Roychowdhury’s career trajectory—marked by adaptability, cross-cultural leadership, and experience in complex transformations—positions her well to navigate these challenges.
For Mars Snacking, the role of Chief People & Org Officer is central to enabling growth ambitions while preserving the company’s distinctive culture. As consumer preferences shift and competition intensifies, the ability to attract, develop, and retain talent across markets becomes critical. Roychowdhury’s focus on operating model design and leadership alignment suggests a strategic intent to ensure that structures, capabilities, and behaviours are aligned with long-term business goals, rather than reacting piecemeal to short-term pressures.
Her background in managing integrations and large-scale change also signals preparedness for future transformations, whether driven by portfolio evolution, market expansion, or technological disruption. Having led through uncertainty and complexity before, she brings a steadying influence that can help organisations maintain clarity and cohesion during periods of flux. This is particularly valuable in AMEA, where geopolitical, economic, and social dynamics can shift rapidly and unpredictably.
Roychowdhury’s appointment also reflects a broader trend among global companies to elevate people leadership roles to the highest strategic levels. As businesses recognise that culture, capability, and leadership are key drivers of performance, roles like Chief People & Org Officer are increasingly seen as partners to the business, rather than support functions. In this context, her blend of commercial acumen, cultural sensitivity, and digital awareness aligns closely with what modern organisations require from their people leaders.
As she takes on her new role at Mars Snacking, Roychowdhury is expected to focus on building resilient, future-ready organisations that can thrive across the diverse markets of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Her track record suggests an emphasis on thoughtful, inclusive leadership and disciplined execution—qualities that will be essential as Mars continues to grow and evolve in the region. With her appointment, Mars Snacking signals its commitment to placing people and organisation at the heart of its strategy, recognising that sustainable success in AMEA will be shaped as much by its culture and talent as by its brands and products.
Discover more from Creative Brands
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
