Management Council

Achin Gupta is the Managing Director and Global Chief Executive Officer (MD & GCEO) since April 2026. He joined Cipla in 2021 as CEO of the One India business and in February 2025 was elevated as the Global Chief Operating Officer of Cipla.

Achin holds a master’s degree in technology from IIT Delhi, specialising in Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. Prior to joining Cipla, he worked with Glenmark, Abbott and AT Kearney. With deep expertise in healthcare across India, UK, Europe, Latin America, Asia and MEA, Achin has successfully led growth and transformation at scale with strong insights into strategy, portfolio management, product development, licensing, and partnerships. He has a consistent focus on developing and nurturing people.

Under Achin’s leadership, Cipla’s One India business has achieved strong profitability with market-leading revenue growth. He has strengthened the core business, spearheaded Cipla Digital Health’s initiatives, transformed the retail field force, and led multiple consumer-centric innovations. Achin has built strategic partnerships with global MNCs, positioning it as a preferred partner for in-licensing and innovation. He is an entrepreneurial leader with a track record of establishing new business frontiers. Passionate about transforming healthcare, Achin is dedicated to fostering a culture of innovation and accountability with a focus on ensuring a healthier future for patients.

Ashish Adukia joined Cipla as the Global Chief Financial Officer at Cipla in August 2022. Also, as a member of Cipla’s Management Council, Ashish will be responsible for contributing towards organization-wide projects and initiatives, apart from managing key acquisitions, divestments, P&L decisions for the company.

Prior to this, he was the CFO and part of the leadership team of Grasim Industries, the flagship company of Aditya Birla Group. After completing his Chartered Accountancy with an MBA in finance from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Ashish acquired close to two decades of rich cross-industry experience in investment banking and worked in large Indian conglomerates.

Apart from his stint at Grasim Industries, Ashish has been associated with Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and PwC. He comes with a deep understanding of capital markets and building, and scaling organizations backed by his strong focus on strategy and transformative excellence.

Ashish was featured in Fortune India’s 40 under 40 list in 2016 and was also the recipient of the Chairman’s Accomplished Leader Award at ABG in 2017. He enjoys playing tennis to unwind in his spare time and is passionate about scuba diving.

Arun Kakatkar is the Global Chief People Officer at Cipla Limited since March 2026 and is also member of its Management Council.

Arun is a seasoned business leader with extensive experience across multiple business functions, industries, and geographies. He has led diverse teams across global environments and delivered transformational outcomes. 

Prior to joining Cipla, Arun has held senior leadership roles with various global organisations including Microsoft Corporation, Kalyani Group, TE Connectivity India etc.  

With an engineering background and an MBA from Pune University, Arun is deeply passionate about building organisational and leadership capability, fostering strong culture, and enabling sustainable business outcomes.

Paul Miller is the Chief Executive Officer of Cipla, South Africa. He joined Cipla Medpro in 2013, prior to which he served as the Vice President and Managing Director of Mylan in South Africa and as the Marketing Director of AstraZeneca in China. 

With an MBA from the University of Wales, Paul has worked across Europe, Asia and North America before serving in leadership roles in South Africa. He brings with him more than two decades of experience of successfully building and launching innovative brands that became market leaders across therapeutic areas such as cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, respiratory and anesthesia. 

Paul is highly regarded as someone who has solid understanding of strategy, building businesses and developing people. Paul is currently spearheading the One Africa region which comprises of South Africa, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Cipla Global Access (CGA). He’s driving the company’s steady growth momentum in the South African market, considered to be a second home market for Cipla globally.

In his spare time, Paul enjoys competing in triathlons.

Swapn Malpani is CEO, Emerging Markets & Europe since April 2024 and is a member of Cipla’s Management Council.

Previously, he was the Joint President & Global Head of Supply Chain & Procurement at Cipla. Prior to joining Cipla in 2016, he worked with leading Indian and multi-national companies across diverse sectors including pharmaceutical, medical devices, consumer and food industries like Glenmark, Johnson & Johnson, ThermoFisher, Dr Reddy’s, and Mars Inc.

An engineering gold medalist and postgraduate in Supply Chain Management, Swapn brings with him 25 years of global experience and domain expertise in end-to-end Supply Chain Management & Procurement encompassing areas of strategic sourcing & procurement, external manufacturing, demand & supply planning, logistics & distribution, and customer service.

A strong leader with a strategic and creative mind set, Swapn has a proven track record of supporting the growth of organizations by championing transformation, building talent, and creating tangible values.

Marc Falkin is the Chief Executive Officer for Cipla North America and is also a member of Cipla’s Management Council. He is based out of New Jersey and is responsible for leading Cipla’s ambitious plans in North America. Prior to being named the CEO in July 2024, he served as Cipla’s Chief Commercial Officer in North America.

Marc joined Cipla in 2018 and has demonstrated his leadership proficiency by contributing to Cipla’s market leadership in the US. He comes with over 30 years of commercial experience in Sales and Marketing, with both customer and supplier management. Prior to joining Cipla, Marc worked with Anda Distribution, Watson, Actavis and Teva.

Marc holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from George Washington University and an MBA Degree from Florida Atlantic University.

Shivam Puri leads Cipla's One India Business, bringing together Prescription Rx, CPLS Generics, Cipla Digital (CDHL), Cipla Health (CHL), and MedTech. He will be driving the company's integrated growth strategy across the domestic market. In his role, he is focused on strengthening Cipla's leadership by building a unified, future-ready organisation that combines scale, innovation, and a deep understanding of patient and consumer needs.

Previously, Shivam was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Cipla Health Ltd. (CHL), where he transformed CHL from a fledgling startup to one of India's largest wellness company.

Before joining CHL, Shivam spent over 12 years at Hindustan Unilever (HUL), where he played a pivotal role in building and scaling multiple businesses including Pureit water purifiers, the salon professional products division, laundry portfolio and the modern trade vertical. He has also had experience with Jubilant FoodWorks, where he spearheaded global QSR brands such as Dunkin' Donuts and built Hong's Kitchen, its Chinese cuisine foray, from the ground up.

Shivam holds an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-BHU) and an MBA in Sales & Marketing from the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow.

Vijayasarathi Ramaswami is the Global Head of Quality at Cipla since June 2022. He was previously the Senior Vice President of Operations Quality (APIs & Formulations) at Cipla for four years. As a member of Cipla’s Management Council, he is responsible for driving a strong culture of quality and regulatory compliance across Cipla sites.

Vijayasarathi has close to three decades of experience in manufacturing, packaging, quality assurance and product development projects of pharmaceutical formulations & active pharmaceutical ingredients. Prior to joining Cipla, he has worked with companies like Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Sanofi, etc. where he was responsible for Quality control, Quality assurance, manufacturing operations of APIs and Formulations in various capacities and across geographies.

A strong proponent of high-quality pharmaceutical products, in his present role, Vijay leads the organisation’s global quality enterprise right from the development of a product to its commercialization, and spearheads Cipla’s commitment to an uncompromising state of control with absolute regulatory compliance across all manufacturing sites of Cipla, its partners and third parties.

Vijay has done a Post Graduate Certificate Programme in Management from IIM-Kozhikode. He also has a Master of Science degree in Chemistry with honors and a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree with honors from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani in Rajasthan.

Dr. Jaideep A Gogtay is the Global Chief Medical Officer at Cipla and has been associated with Cipla for nearly 30 years.

At Cipla, Dr. Gogtay has been closely involved in the development and introduction of several drugs in various therapeutic fields, particularly in HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases and respiratory diseases. He has worked on several clinical trials in the field of asthma, COPD and infectious diseases. He was a key member of the team which introduced several antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of AIDS including the 1$ a day triple drug cocktail. He was a member of the Association of Physicians of India (Guidelines 2005) on ‘Antiretroviral therapy’. He has 50 publications to his credit including chapters on Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of antibiotics and has presented papers at over 50 conferences.

Dr. Gogtay completed his medical graduation (M.B.B.S) from Grant Medical College and Sir J J Group of Hospitals in Mumbai. He has a M.D degree in Pharmacology from Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital.

Sneha Hiranandani, Chief Information Officer, is associated with Cipla since 2013. She chairs Cipla’s Digital Council, driving technology adoption and innovation across the organisation. As a member of Cipla’s Management Council, she carries vast experience in managing diverse cultures, geographies, and systems to deliver a unified IT vision.

At Cipla, Sneha has been instrumental in shaping the company’s IT roadmap with a focus on ERP, manufacturing automation, business intelligence and information security. She is deeply committed to the belief that new advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the proliferation of Large Language Models (LLM) technologies will address tough business challenges and propel Cipla’s digital transformation journey.

With over 35 years of experience building technology cultures and directing technology led transformation journeys, Sneha is a veteran in her field. Prior to joining Cipla, she spent 24 years at Mondelez International, where she advanced from a management trainee to Vice President and Head of APAC, successfully executing multiple global digital transformation initiatives.

Sneha holds a Post Graduate Degree in Systems / Enterprise Architecture Design and Application Development.

Sai Mungara is Global Head of Supply Chain & Procurement at Cipla Limited since April 2024 and is also member of its Management Council. Sai is an accomplished leader and brings with him 26+ years of global experience and domain expertise in the field of Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management and Operations across diverse industries such as Chemical, IT and Pharmaceuticals. He is highly skilled in Verification and Validation (V&V), Biotechnology, Business Intelligence and Process Engineering.

Previously, he was the Vice President and Head of North America Supply Chain at Cipla. In this role, he contributed significantly to enabling growth trajectory by ramping up and optimizing our third party SCM operations, organization redesign and driving several productivity enhancement projects.

Prior to joining Cipla in 2022, he has also held key leadership positions with top US & Indian Pharmaceutical companies like Dr. Reddy's and Sun Pharma. He has a proven track record of leading large-scale transformations to build future fit supply chain organization.

Sai holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur & PhD in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University, USA.

Prabhakaran Nair is the Global Chief Manufacturing Officer of Cipla since July 2025. He joined Cipla in 2023 as Head of Operations Quality, wherein he led Quality Operations for Indore and played an instrumental role in driving various initiatives towards effective site remediation and a structural transformation in quality assurance. As a member of Cipla’s Management Council, Prabhakaran is primarily responsible for Global Manufacturing Operations aligned to the organisation’s long-term vision and the evolving business environment.

With over three decades of experience, Prabhakaran possesses extensive expertise in global manufacturing operations across multiple dosage forms, including sterile injectables. Prior to joining Cipla, he was the Chief Operating Officer at Encube Ethicals and had a long stint with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories wherein he was in charge of multiple formulation sites in India and globally. He has also been associated with companies like ACG WorldWide, Ipca Laboratories India and Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited.

Prabhakaran has been deeply committed to upholding Cipla’s culture of uncompromised and industry- defining quality benchmarks and firmly believes in fostering internal talent growth. His focus on driving operational efficiencies, innovation, cost optimisation, regulatory compliance, digital transformation and quality assurance, form the basis of his approach to ensuring global manufacturing excellence.

Meera is a law graduate from Government Law College, Mumbai, and currently leads the Global Legal, Compliance, and Corporate Affairs function. With over three decades of rich global experience, Meera has led Legal, Compliance, and Intellectual Property (IP) functions across leading organizations including Abbott, Glenmark, Johnson & Johnson, Bunge, Kodak, Marico, and other multinational corporations Her deep expertise spans strategic legal advisory, complex litigation and business-critical negotiations, enabling her to play a pivotal role in shaping legal and compliance frameworks aligned with the global organizations.   She has also been instrumental in building and strengthening highperforming global legal teams, consistently delivering legal and compliance outcomes that support business priorities.  A frequent speaker at industry forums, Meera regularly shares perspectives on a wide range of legal topics. She is a proud recipient of several awards and accolades including the “Trailblazers: India’s Finest In-house Counsel” (2016), GC-Powerlist India-2016, “Outstanding Corporate Counsel - Pharmaceutical Sector Award 2018” and Best In-House Legal Team in Pharma Sector” (2018).

Sushrut Kulkarni has been appointed as President & Global Chief-Integrated Product Development (IPD) at Cipla Limited and is also a member of the Company’s Management Council.
 
Prior to joining Cipla, Sushrut served as the Global Head-Integrated Product Development Organization (IPDO) and a member of the Management Council at Dr Reddy’s Laboratories. Over the course of his three‑decade‑long career, he has held senior leadership roles with Glenmark & Zydus Lifesciences. Earlier in his career, he has also held positions of responsibility at Torrent Research Centre, Sandoz India, and Rhone Poulenc (India) Limited. With a strong track record of multiple filings and approvals across regulated and semi‑regulated markets across diverse dosage forms, Sushrut has consistently demonstrated the ability to scale R&D operations, unlock stalled pipelines, and successfully execute complex programs in highly regulated markets.
 
Sushrut holds a Bachelor’s & Master’s degree in Pharmacy from Shivaji University & University of Mumbai respectively. Outside of work, he enjoys reading on history, autobiographies, and spirituality, and is passionate about fitness, writing, photography, and driving.