Honasa Consumer, the parent company of brands including Mamaearth, The Derma Co., Aqualogica, and Ayuga, announced that its board now comprises of 50% independent board members. The appointment of independent directors is extremely significant to ensure that the board prioritizes the interests of shareholders. It can help to facilitate independent decision-making and to balance conflicting views and opinions among board members in favor of shareholders.
The board of Honasa Consumer Limited comprises of six members, namely, Ghazal Alagh, Varun Alagh, Ishaan Mittal, Vivek Gambhir, Namita Gupta and Subramaniam Somasundaram. Out of these, Ghazal and Varun Alagh are co-founders of the Company, and Ishaan Mittal is a nominee of Sequoia Capital on the board of HCL. Whereas, Vivek Gambhir, Namita Gupta and Subramaniam Somasundaram are independent board members who have decades of experience in FMCG, and ecommerce marketplace, hence the understanding, evaluation and mentoring imparted by the board on HCL’s plans, and performance are extremely pivotal in charting the way forward for the organization. These independent board members will be part of the statutory committee, audit committee, nomination and remuneration committee, stakeholder committee and other committees wherein the independent directors may constitute more than 65pc to ensure compliance with all parameters of corporate governance measures like transparency, control measures et. al.
Commenting on this, Varun Alagh, Co-Founder and CEO, Honasa Consumer Ltd. said, “An independent board is critical for any organization for unbiased decision making. In the past, we have been fortunate to have such experienced individuals on the board of Honasa Consumer Limited. Our board members have helped keep checks and balances in place to ensure we take calculated risks and mitigate tough situations.”
Ramanpreet Sohi, CFO, Honasa Consumer Ltd., “In order to maintain governance checks and balances and ensure transparency and control measures, companies appoint independent board members. Over the last 5 years, Honasa Consumer has witnessed fast paced growth. While the statutory requirement is of 33% of independent board members, we have opted to keep 50% of our board as independent board members, to ensure readiness for future. They have been instrumental in ensuring strict checkpoints through our working over the years.”
