Global Leadership

Vijay Balakrishnan is the Chief Data & Analytics Officer of the UPL Group, who joined us in September 2022. He is a digital transformation leader, public speaker and a technology enthusiast. He will create a Digital & Analytics function within UPL that develops into a long-term digital strategy, in partnership with all the CxOs in the organisation.

He started his career at Oracle, later got his MBA in Finance and joined General Electric Digital leadership program in 2008. At General Electric, he took up various leadership roles in Analytics and Digital transformation across a decade. In 2019, he joined the Michelin Group as the Global Chief Data officer, where he was responsible for Data strategy and monetization.

Vijay believes in instituting a continuous learning culture across the organization and practices the same through the power of small habits by learning a new technology every quarter. His expertise extends across Digital transformation, enterprise D&A strategy, inclusive Governance framework, future-ready Platforms, value-focused Analytics programs and an inclusive Digital culture that translates into a continuous and long-term Technology/Data monetization focus for the organization. He believes in leveraging data as a critical asset, thereby enabling data-driven decisions across functions, evolving into a potential Digital P&L.

Christina Coen has joined UPL in 2022, as our Chief Marketing Officer. She joined UPL from Nalco Water, an Ecolab company, where she was Vice President and General Manager of their Institutional Division. At Ecolab, she led a team of 600+ associates to develop and execute specific go-to-market strategies for greater than $2B of market opportunity.

Christina comes with diverse leadership experiences in strategic marketing, commercial P&L leadership, alliancing, and general management roles. She spent the initial 15 years of her career with Dow AgroSciences where she held multiple roles including the Head of Global Licensing and leadership roles in Marketing. After Dow, she moved to FMC as the Marketing Head of North America where she was later promoted as the Commercial Head for the North America business. She has served on the Board of Directors for multiple Ag company startups and has volunteered her time as a Board Director for the Agricultural Retailers' Association.

Christina is passionate about leading and developing people, partnering with strategic customers and serving the agriculture community.

Christina is a Mechanical Engineering graduate from the Michigan State University and an MBA from the Northwood University.

Ezio was CEO- Crop Care Holdings at Patria Investments in Brazil. Prior to joining Patria, Ezio managed key leadership roles in our SCM organization. In his last role at UPL, he was the Global Head of Formulations Supply Chain and Operations. A multi-faceted leader who worked in manufacturing, supply chain, in AGRO SB and Syngenta, he brings strong expertise in managing business globally with a stint in Hong Kong with Rotam.

Ezio is refining the Global NPP growth strategy, reviewing our Bio-Solutions portfolio and R&D strategy, go-to market approach in key business regions to create a strong business plan in partnership with the regions.

Bhupen Dubey, COO – Seeds has been with the UPL Group for 15 years, where he has had a dynamic career moving from a regional role in India to Regional Business lead for India, before moving into role of Chief Executive Officer -Seeds business in 2016. Bhupen has played a key role in managing and integrating companies within the UPL group such as Advanta/ UPL, Golden Seeds and Unicorn. He has been driving essential integrations to bring profitable and sustainable growth for the UPL business.

Susan joined UPL in January 2023 and is responsible for all legal matters of the global crop protection. Susan joins us from Klöckner Pentaplast, a food and pharmaceutical packaging company, where she was General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Company Secretary.

Susan is a commercially minded international lawyer who comes with diverse leadership experiences. After honing her skills at international law firms, she has served for over 20 years as in-house counsel for companies in various sectors, including with Boston Scientific Corporation as International Counsel and Lead Counsel for Latin America and Middle East before moving to Cabot Corporation for seven years, where she was Counsel for EMEA and South America and was later promoted to Chief Counsel. She later moved to Valspar and then BMI Group as General Counsel before joining Klöckner Pentaplast. Susan is a graduate from the Tulane University Law School in the US.

Vicente Gongora is the UPL CTO, he had been the CMO in past and has been part of UPL journey for more than 10 years

In his previous role as Global Head of Differentiated & Sustainable Solutions where he lead focused efforts to grow our business of novel crop protection AIs, innovative formulations, biosolutions, soil and seed health, and digital farming services. Prior to this role, he held the position of Regional Head of North America where he developed strategic plans to advance the company's corporate identity in the US market and drive profitable growth.

His experience also includes leadership of Marketing, R&D and Regulatory for UPL, Brazil. He has solid experience in developing new concepts and campaigns, coupled with strong technical expertise and teamwork ability.

Vicente joined UPL in 2011 through the integration of DVA in Brazil and has more than 35 years of experience leading businesses in the Agrochemical industry. He has worked in critical roles for FMC in Brazil and South America & Cyanamid in Brazil and Paraguay.

Sagar Kaushik is currently in the role of Global Head – Corporate Affairs. He joined UPL in 2011, as the COO- UPL Crop Protection business. He successfully led the business teams to develop new products, technologies and expand the UPL footprint in multiple new markets. In 2017, Sagar moved into a new role of Global Head - Corporate Affairs.

Prior to joining UPL, Sagar brings with him more than 30 years of experience in several leadership positions with Aventis Corp Science, Bayer Crop Science in countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Germany & India. His last assignment was in Germany as the Head of Crop Management for Bayer.

Rohit Kumar joined UPL in 2010. He is the Global General Counsel of UPL Group where he leads a team of close to 40 in-house lawyers overseeing all aspects of legal work relating to the group. Rohit brings over 18 year experience dealing with mergers, acquisitions, advising the company on strategic disputes and other legal law issues affecting the group globally. Prior to UPL, Rohit has worked as a commercial lawyer for Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) in Melbourne, Australia and J. Sagar Associates (JSA) in New Delhi, India.

Andrew Markwick is the CFO of UPL Corporation. He joined UPL in January 2023 and is responsible for the global finance function at UPL Corporation.

Andrew joins us from IQVIA, a global provider of technology solutions and clinical research services for the life sciences industry, where he most recently served as CFO, R&D Solutions. In this role he was leading a team of ~500 finance professionals for IQVIA’s global Contract Research Organization (CRO) division which had ~$8 billion in annual revenue. Andrew was associated with IQVIA for over 10 years where he held various leadership roles in treasury, investor relations and business finance. Prior to IQVIA, he worked in the Actuarial, Facilities Management and Liquid and Gas sectors in FP&A, audit and controllership positions. Andrew is a Chartered Global Management Accountant (ACMA/ CGMA).

Andrew is a highly accomplished corporate executive with 20+ years of finance and accounting experience across global organizations. He comes with a track record of focused execution to drive business growth and deliver superior shareholder returns.

K.R. Srivastava (KRS), COO - Speciality Chemicals, joined UPL in 1999. He has held several senior leadership positions in the UPL Crop Protection business. KRS played an instrumental role in the scale up of our manufacturing footprint, Operational excellence through projects in his role as the leader for the Global Supply Chain & Manufacturing organization, In 2016, KRS took up the opportunity to develop the Specialty Chemicals business at a global level as the CEO- Specialty Chemicals for UPL.

Paresh Talati, Global Head – Chemistry R&D, joined UPL in 1994. He has been instrumental in creating a strong business focused R&D organization that has contributed immensely towards UPL's growth objectives.

Paresh has over 37 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and agri-inputs industry.

Toshan Tamhane is the Chief Strategy Officer of UPL with responsibility for driving new business building, digital & analytics initiatives, M&A and proprietary investments. Since joining UPL in December 2020, he has been leading efforts to in set up the Corporate Venture arm, launching businesses in priority areas of sustainability & food systems, initiating partnerships with agri start-ups and driving the analytics/digital transformation agenda. Prior to UPL, he was a Senior Partner with the consulting firm, McKinsey & Co., having worked across 26 countries and co-leading several practices/sectors including Private Equity, Financial Services and Analytics at the India/Asia level. He was also a member of McKinsey’s committee that elects global partners for the Firm. Toshan was also selected as one of India’s ‘40 under 40 leaders’ by Economic Times, is an independent Board Member of ASK Wealth Advisors, one of India’s largest wealth management firms and a visiting faculty at the IIMs, SP Jain Management Institute & Vedica University.

Craig Brekkas is currently the Regional Head of North America. Craig grew up on a grain farm in Western Canada and brings more than 25 years of experience in the agriculture industry both in the US and Canadian markets where he has held multiple Sales, Marketing and Regional Leadership roles with increasing responsibility. Prior to his current position, Craig was Head of Canada where he lead the Sales, Marketing, R&D, and commercial strategy for the business. Craig joined UPL in 2019 through the acquisition of Arysta LifeScience.

Rogerio Castro is back to UPL as CEO Brazil and is responsible for all UPL businesses in Brazil, including alliances and joint ventures. Rogerio has spent over 30 years in the Agro sector and was associated with UPL from 2011 to 2019 before he moved out as Operating Partner of Agro practice of Patria Investments. Earlier, as Head of UPL’s Brazilian business, he was known for driving aggressive growth with a long-term strategic mindset. This leadership will help to further strengthen our presence in the market.

Rogerio leads UPL business partnerships in Brazil and is a Board Member in Sinagro and Serra Bonita Seeds. The DECCO and Advanta businesses report on a dotted line to him.

Ashish Dobhal is currently Regional Head of India. Ashish has been part of UPL journey since last 17+ years, he has worked in different countries like Japan, China, Taiwan, Middle East, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh etc. He has taken many challenges upfront and has turned them into success consistently. He is seen as someone who takes up challenging assignments and delivers. With the help of our digital and fintech initiatives, he will be playing a pivotal role in more than doubling our business in India in a short time frame. In past Ashish was Head of UPL Agri Formulation business.

Marcel Dreyer is the Regional Head of Africa, Middle East

With UPLs expansion and need to have focussed strategies to increase footprint in key new markets Marcel will now be heading this newly formed business region.

In the past, he has handled multiple leadership roles in Hyper Agrochemical Pvt ltd, Tsunami Plant Protection Pvt Ltd as Technical and Marketing Director. With UPL his past role was heading erstwhile business region of Africa Middle East Australia and New Zealand (AMEANZ).

Hisaya Kobayashi is the Regional Head of Asia. He was with Arysta LifeScience and one of Arysta's predecessor companies, Tomen Corporation, since 1991.

Kobayashi's international career began in corporate planning and sales to Latin America and Southeast Asia for Tomen Corporation, Tokyo. With Arysta LifeScience, he then served as marketing and supply chain director in Brazil and head of supply chain for Europe Africa Middle East. Prior to his current position in Japan and Asia, he was based in Pau, France, where he served as regional director for Central and Eastern Europe.

Felix Lorente is the Region Head - Europe South. Felix has more than 23 years of experience in Agribusiness working for Multinational Companies in country management, commercial policies planning and operations control in Europe, Latin America, Africa and Middle East.

Jagdish Nainwal is the Regional Head of LATAM. Prior to managing LATAM, Jagdish was leading Mexico business as its Country Manager. He started his 2nd journey in UPL in the year 2014 in the Global Marketing team as a Global Portfolio Lead - Insecticides. He comes with more than 18 years of experience in Sales, Marketing and P&L management. He has strong functional and business understanding which has been built through diverse roles that he has managed in UPL and externally.

Prior to joining UPL, Jagdish has worked in different multi-national companies in the Agri-inputs industry such as BASF & Pioneer Hi-Bred international (A DuPont Company).

Sameer Tandon is heading the region of ASEANZ as with influx of new business opportunities and growth potential on key markets of significance.

He is an engineering graduate from National Institute of Technology, Raipur. He has attended several management programs at leading institutions in India and been involved with delivering trainings for practising managers. Sameer has over 25 years of sales, marketing and general management experience in some of the top MNC and Indian corporates including Sumitomo, Castrol (BP), Monsanto and Escorts.

Under his leadership India region attained No. 1 position as the biggest Crop Protection company in the country with a comprehensive increase in profitability. Sameer strategized and implemented the integrated Crop Protection and bio-solutions package branded as ProNutiva bringing sustainability objective to forefront in agriculture along with improving profitability for the farmers.

A People leader in true sense, Sameer has personally coached the key transformation in the mindsets of the teams and enabled building capability of more effective and simultaneously efficiently delivering high growths through various organization wide interventions. Sameer has been a great team leader and inculcated the team spirit in all in his past role as India Region Head.

Jeroen Voorbraak is the Regional Head of Europe North.

Jeroen started his career in the Agro Chemicals industry in 2005 at Dutch based production company AgriChem, which was acquired by UPL in 2012. At AgriChem Jeroen worked in both the commercial as well as the production side of the business.

Since 2012 Jeroen has successfully grown UPL’s business in various European countries and has recently managed the subregion of Northwest Europe.