In this episode of the Not Just AI podcast, Pranay Agrawal sits down with Deepak Subramanian, President & Managing Director, North America at Unilever Food Solutions, for a deep dive into enterprise AI transformation, leadership, and the future of competitive advantage in the AI era. From overcoming the “pilot-to-scale gap” to embedding AI into workflows, culture, and decision-making, Deepak shares practical insights from Unilever’s AI journey across marketing, R&D, sales enablement, content creation, and customer intelligence.
The conversation explores why most enterprises struggle to scale AI, the importance of outcome-driven transformation, and how organizations can move beyond experimentation toward enterprise-wide impact.
Deepak also discusses how AI is reshaping the consumer goods and food industry. The episode dives into the rise of AI-powered personalization in both B2B and B2C environments, the growing importance of governance and workforce upskilling, and why human creativity, leadership, and trust will matter even more in an AI-first future.
A thoughtful and practical conversation for business leaders, operators, marketers, and anyone building AI into the fabric of their organization.
Spearkers info
Deepak Subramanian is President & Managing Director of North America Unilever Food Solutions - having previously been a Member of the Management Committee of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), the Indian subsidiary of Unilever, and a publicly listed company in India with a market cap of 70 billion USD. In addition to serving as the Executive Director – Homecare, HUL, he has also been the General Manager of the Homecare Business of Unilever for the South Asia region. He joined Unilever as a Management Trainee in India in 1995, after completing his B.A.(Honors) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.
In a global career spanning more than 28 years, he has lived and worked in India, Europe and Asia and has worked across local, regional and global sales and marketing roles and more recently in board-level General Management roles, bearing full profit and loss responsibility. He is also a non-Executive Director of the Hindustan Unilever Foundation, a member of the Global Advisory Board of Insider (a global growth management platform), the Web3 Marketing Association, and an advisor, mentor, and investor in deep tech and sustainability start-ups and venture capital funds like Antler and 500.
He is a graduate of the Executive Programme at Singularity University and a Certified Chair from the Advisory Board Centre, Australia.
al, regional and global sales and marketing roles and more recently in board-level General Management roles, bearing full profit and loss responsibility. He is also a non-Executive Director of the Hindustan Unilever Foundation, a member of the Global Advisory Board of Insider (a global growth management platform), the Web3 Marketing Association, and an advisor, mentor, and investor in deep tech and sustainability start-ups and venture capital funds like Antler and 500.
He is a graduate of the Executive Programme at Singularity University and a Certified Chair from the Advisory Board Centre, Australia.
Pranay Agrawal is the Non - Executive Director of our Company. He is also the Chief Executive Officer of our Material Subsidiary, Fractal USA. He is responsible for, among others, strengthening client partnerships, delivering overall revenue growth and increasing the visibility and scalability of Fractal. He holds a bachelor’s of commerce degree from Bangalore University and a post-graduate diploma in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He received the Young Alumni Achievers Award in the field of entrepreneurship from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in Fiscal 2019. He has over 25 years of experience in the technology sector. He is one of the founders of our Company and has been associated with our Company since its incorporation.
