Yum Promotes Pizza Hut India's Unnat Varma as MD, Asia-Pacific

Unnat Varma who was managing Pizza Hut business for India sub Continent has been promoted to MD, Asia-Pacific.

Varma as the managing director for the pizza chain’s Asia Pacific will be looking at operations of over 5,500 restaurants spread across 17 countries from next month.

“Value, convenience and reliability are fuelling growth, and we need to continue to make the brand relevant for different consumers. There are key learnings from India which we will take to other markets,” shared Varma.

Varma, who has been with US-based Yum Brands Inc’s Indian arm for over 12 years now, will operate out of its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore.

Pizza Hut’s India operation, which was earlier reporting to the US parent company, is being merged with the Asia outfit. While a part of Pizza Hut’s India operations including marketing, execution and store operations will be headed by current marketing chief Prashant Gaur, other functions such as business development, HR and finance, which are being integrated with the Asia operations, will continue to be overseen by Varma.

With 430 Pizza Hut restaurants and a potential consumer base of 1.5 million, India is the Kentucky-based pizza maker’s second largest market in the Asia Pacific region after China, which has over 2,000 outlets.

In India, all the Pizza Hut restaurants are franchised, and split up largely between RJ Corp-promoted Devyani International and Sapphire Foods India, a consortium of funds led by Samara Capital.

Pizza Hut reported 20% system sales growth in India for the third quarter ended September 30, 2018, which it said was its ninth consecutive quarter of positive growth, in response to healthier consumption trends within the eating-out sector. “Consumption in the overall food sector has grown, and pizzas are leading the pack as a category,” added Varma.