Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, August 2026 — Titan Company Limited has appointed Priya Mathilakath Pillai as Chief People Officer (CPO), effective April 1, 2027, as part of the company’s planned leadership succession. She will succeed Swadesh Behera, who is scheduled to superannuate from Titan on March 31, 2027. The appointment was approved by Titan’s Board on August 7.
Pillai currently serves as Head – HR, Retail and Corporate at Titan Company Limited, where she leads the people agenda for an on-roll workforce of more than 8,000 employees, alongside approximately 5,000 off-roll personnel, spanning five businesses, manufacturing operations and corporate support functions. Her responsibilities also extend to HR support for Titan’s Business Associate community and its workforce, while she leads the company’s diversity and inclusion agenda and serves as ICC Chairperson for POSH. She has spent more than a decade in her current senior HR leadership tenure at Titan and previously served as Head – Training at Titan Industries from 2005 to 2008.
Before returning to Titan in 2015, Pillai spent more than seven years with Mahindra Retail, where she served as Vice President & Head – Ecommerce and HR. She led the people strategy for a fast-growing retail business with more than 1,500 employees and a footprint exceeding 500 stores across India. Her remit encompassed organizational culture, learning and organizational development, talent management and performance management. She also headed the company’s e-commerce business, giving her a distinctive combination of HR and operating business leadership experience.
Her broader career of more than three decades spans consumer goods, retail, insurance, hospitality, direct selling and human resources. Pillai has held leadership positions including Zonal Manager – South India & Sri Lanka at Modi Revlon, Branch Manager – Bangalore at Aviva Life Insurance India, and Business Manager – South at Hindustan Unilever, where she managed a network of more than 30,000 distributors. Earlier, she worked with Oriflame in business development and began her career with Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces in sales.
Pillai has also invested extensively in leadership and general management education. She completed the Mahindra Universe Programme in Organizational Leadership at Harvard Business School in 2014 and the Management Education Programme at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, sponsored by Unilever, in 2001. She holds a B.A. in Economics, Sociology and Political Science from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore. As CPO, she will lead Titan’s people strategy as the organization continues to develop its portfolio of consumer businesses and strengthen the talent and organizational capabilities supporting its growth.
About Titan Company Limited
Titan Company Limited traces its origins to 1984, when it was established as a joint venture between the Tata Group and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation. The company transformed India’s watch market through quartz technology and contemporary styling and subsequently expanded into multiple consumer lifestyle categories.
Its portfolio includes widely recognized brands such as Titan, Tanishq, Sonata and Fastrack, with operations extending across watches, jewellery, eyewear and other consumer businesses. Supported by manufacturing, design and retail capabilities, Titan has continued to build its presence around innovation, product quality and consumer-focused brands.
Read Also : How HR Leaders Are Redefining Talent Development for the Future of Work
Selective Increments, Strategic Hiring: How AI Skills Are Reshaping India Inc’s Appraisal Cycle
From Org Charts to Skill Graphs: The Reinvention of Enterprise Design
Rethinking Talent in the Age of AI: Why Workforce Agility Starts with the 4Bs
The HR Leader’s Real AI Problem Is Not Adoption. It Is Architecture.
