About the founder

Vani Gupta Dandia

Former Marketing Head at PepsiCo Foods India, with over 25 years across leading global and Indian brands.

At PepsiCo, Vani played a pivotal role in transforming a ₹2000+ crore brand portfolio — migrating the legacy Lehar brand from negative margins to profitability under Kurkure, and leading two major relaunches that turned the business from two years of double-digit decline to sustained, double-digit growth.

Since then she has worked with over 100 entrepreneurs and several VC fund houses, delivering measurable outcomes including a 40%+ revenue increase in her first post-PepsiCo project with Cars24.

Vani currently serves as a Senior Marketing Advisor with KPMG, teaches two courses on branding and consumer behaviour at Ashoka University, and is a certified Independent Director registered with the Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs.

I take pride in working directly with the client, in their office, not just to craft the solution but also execute. Vani Gupta Dandia — afaqs!, October 2019

Recognition

India Region Above and Beyond Chairman's Award, from Indra Nooyi
India Region Innovations Excellence Award
AMEA PwP Sustained Performance Award
Business Today's Under 40, 2015

Listen to Marketing with Vani Vani in the press

Connect with Vani on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/vanidandia (opens in a new tab)

Track record

Close to three decades of top industry experience.

2018–present

CherryPeachPlum Growth Partners

Founded an independent marketing, brand and sales consulting firm to help young companies with growth strategies.
Worked with over 100 entrepreneurs across food, health, tech and consumer goods.

2011–2018

PepsiCo India

Marketing Director for Indian Snacks.
Drove the turnaround of Kurkure from double-digit decline to double-digit revenue growth and profitability.
Migrated the Lehar brand to high positive margins under Kurkure.
Received the India Region Above and Beyond Chairman's Award from Indra Nooyi.

2005–2010

Unilever (Asia Region)

Launched a range of hair care products for coloured hair across 10 countries in South and South East Asia, beating revenue and NOPBT plan.
Championed the category creation strategy for hair conditioners in India.

2003–2005

Reckitt Benckiser

Launched Veet, Reckitt's first foray into women's personal care in Asia. Achieved market leadership in the first year.

2001–2003

Henkel

Achieved market leadership in North and East in the deodorants category, with a very small fraction of Unilever's ad spends.

1998–2001

Leo Burnett and R K Swamy-BBDO

Launched Coke 200ml and 500ml.
First ever India TVC for Adidas with Sachin Tendulkar, later with Paes and Bhupathi.

Testimonials

What our clients say.

More testimonials

Avneet Mann, Co-Founder

Working with Vani has been nothing short of a revelation for us at The Wishing Chair. Her talent isn't just in the breadth of her clarity but in the precision of her insights.
While crafting the brand proposition, Vani became more than a consultant; she became a friend, a trusted advisor whose opinions on consumer behaviour have become our compass.
If you're looking to decode the complex tapestry of customer engagement and brand positioning, we can't recommend Vani highly enough.

How can we sharpen The Wishing Chair’s brand positioning and build deeper customer engagement?
Amit Chopra, CEO & MD
For me, a few things stood out in the 5-month journey we had together from scratch to launch…
- Access to high quality marketing expertise
- Speed of execution
- Cost effectiveness - a big plus for a small business like ours
- Single window for end-to-end development and execution
All in all, it has been a delight working with CPPGP!
Brand Re-launch