Unilever Pakistan Limited has announced a change in its senior leadership in Pakistan, with Amir Paracha taking over as the new Chairman and CEO from Shazia Syed, effective 1st February 2020. Amir Paracha is currently the Vice President for Customer Development and Sales at Unilever Pakistan. He joined the organization in 2000, after starting his career in the oil & gas sector. Over the past twenty years at Unilever, Amir has been instrumental in reshaping sales and marketing across Pakistan as well as in the North Africa & Middle East business. As VP for Customer Development and Sales in Pakistan, Amir has delivered solid results and maintained a strong growth mindset, successfully delivering a vision focused on the future. He has also led the digital transformation agenda at Unilever, whilst championing inclusion, development and wellbeing successfully in the Unilever sales ecosystem. Shazia Syed has been appointed as the Executive Vice President for Unilever’s global Tea business, based in the Netherlands. Shazia joined Unilever Pakistan as a management trainee and has held a wide variety of Marketing, Customer Development and General Management roles over her career of 30 years, both in Pakistan and abroad. As Chairperson and CEO of the Pakistan business, Shazia has been responsible for accelerating double-digit growth in the country whilst ensuring market leadership in most of Unilever’s categories. Shazia has also been a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion of women in the workforce, both within and outside of Unilever. A critical milestone during Shazia’s tenure in Pakistan was the successful completion of the USD 120 million expansion project, which has unlocked additional manufacturing capacity for the business.
Shazia has served as the President of the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce & Industry (OICCI), where she was instrumental in launching a White Paper on Women Empowerment as well as Pakistan’s first Women Empowerment Awards in 2018. In addition to her leadership positions at Unilever and the OICCI, Shazia has been part of the British Asian Trust, LUMS’ National Management Foundation, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Foundation as well as part of the CEO Partnership for Financial Inclusion set up by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.
