Keeping up with the changing world of business finance, particularly in the food & beverage industry has been Vinod Sisodia’s challenge.
What’s your story?
After finishing my MBA, I got the opportunity to be in commercial roles across different industries, primarily in FMCG, & due to my love for travel I kept on moving across different regions of Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa. The initial part of my career was spent in FMCG, mostly B2C, & now I have moved to the B2B side. I love travelling, learning the different cultural nuances and working with people from different regions and diversity.
What excites you most about your industry?
I am part of the Food & Beverage Industry and with the current inflation pressures, rising health awareness and more preference for plant based foods one shift happening is towards the private label / own store brand range. Globally, private label accounts for 45.7% of total grocery volume and is growing twice as fast as brands (1.4% vs 0.7%). This is dominated by Europe region followed by North America, and other regions have a lot of catch to be done. Innovation now is also being led by the Retailers along with the traditional FMCG companies.
What drives you in your career to push beyond what other people consider normal?
What drives me is the opportunity to create impact at scale—building businesses, teams, and leaders beyond what seems immediately possible. I’m motivated by complex, unfamiliar environments where growth requires discipline, curiosity, and resilience. Pushing beyond ‘normal’ for me isn’t about working harder than others; it’s about setting higher standards, staying solutions‑focused, and consistently turning ambiguity into opportunity.
What have been the most useful skills you have learnt and applied in your journey?
The most useful skills I’ve learnt and consistently applied are thought clarity, stakeholder engagement & alignment & people development. The ability to simplify complexity, make decisions with incomplete information, and bring diverse teams along the journey has been critical—especially across regions and cultures. Over time, I’ve learnt that sustainable results come from combining commercial discipline with empathy and trust-based leadership. This can be seen from my career spanning across Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa Region & being successful only due to the above.
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
The best advice I ever received was to focus on long‑term value, not short‑term comfort. Early in my career, while working on a turnaround role in Africa, I was advised to make the tough decisions early—even if they were unpopular—because avoiding them only compounds problems. That advice stayed with me. It helped me navigate scale‑ups in the Middle East and later complex, multi‑market leadership roles in APAC, where quick wins are tempting, but sustainable impact requires patience, ownership, and staying true to fundamentals. It shaped how I lead—calm under pressure, decisive in ambiguity, and focused on building something that lasts.
Who inspires you?
One of the people who inspired me most was a country leader I worked with during a difficult people mindset change assignment in India. Before his arrival, the company was growing at 5% year on year and in his 3 years of being there, the company delivered an CAGR of 23% year on year. The leadership qualities demonstrated by him were first setting up a vision, communicating that across the larger organisation, building connect across all functions and levels, understanding the ground challenges, finding solutions for them by the larger team and relentless focus on execution.
What have you learnt recently that blew you away?
What surprised me most recently is how quickly consumer expectations are reshaping portfolios—not just toward health or sustainability individually, but toward value, functionality, transparency, and taste at the same time. The margin for error is shrinking. It’s blown me away how fast companies now have to sense, adapt, and execute—especially in food, where change used to be far slower.
If you had your time again, what would you do differently?
I would have chosen a career in Finance as numbers are my strength. In the early part of one’s career, I would always recommend doing a few different roles to truly understand one’s passion and then pursue it. The other thing reflecting back, I would worry less about linear progression and perfect timing. Some of the most defining roles in my career didn’t look ‘safe’ or conventional at the time—moving across regions, categories, or ambiguous mandates—but they shaped me the most. If anything, I’d lean into those experiences earlier, with greater confidence.
How do you unwind?
Going for a run or a trek, travelling different places & meeting people from different backgrounds, watching thrillers.
What is a major mindset change, belief shift or ‘ah ha’ moment that you’ve experienced in relation to your career?
My biggest ‘ah‑ha’ was accepting that ambiguity never really goes away—it just changes form. Earlier, I assumed experience would eventually make decisions clearer. Instead, I learnt that leadership is about getting comfortable making decisions with incomplete information, and adjusting fast. That realisation fundamentally reshaped my confidence and decision‑making style.
Everyone in business should read this book:
Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch. This book strips leadership down to results, candour, and accountability. No slogans, no comfort—just the reality of making hard calls, building leaders, and delivering performance.
Shameless plug for your business or career:
If you need someone who’s comfortable making hard calls, leading through uncertainty, and still keeping people engaged—then that’s my sweet spot. I’ve spent most of my career doing exactly that across Africa, the Middle East, and APAC.
How can people connect with you?
Email: vinshishodia@gmail.com
Social Media Links?
Linkedin URL: www.linkedin.com/in/vinodsisodia/
This interview is part of the CallumConnects series.