Ankit Desai

Ankit Desai is the GM APAC at The Hershey Company. In his role at Hershey, Ankit brings in extensive experience from renowned organizations such as Kellogg, Perfetti Van Melle, in building consumer brands, across diverse food categories of Chocolates, Breakfast Cereals, Snacks, Groceries, Health F&B, and Confectionary. Under Ankit's leadership as Marketing Director, Hershey India has deepened its presence in the fast-growing Indian chocolate market with the successful launch of the iconic Hershey's Kisses and other chocolate brands including Hershey's Exotic Dark, Hershey's Bar, Hershey's Choco Tubes and Hershey's Choco Delights. During the same period, Ankit has successfully built campaigns, innovations and initiatives, which have led to Hershey being among the top players across multiple categories including chocolate syrup, chocolate spreads, milkshake, soya milk and lollipops. Starting January 2024 Ankit has been leading the business for The Hershey Company across APAC (Australia, New Zealand, China, Southeast Asia, Asia North). Ankit's expertise is in building sustainable & profitable brands. He thrives on unlocking potential and building successful teams, bringing in culture of high bias for action and result-orientation. Recognized industry thought leader, who has contributed to internal senior-level learning interventions, Ankit's orientation towards 'thought leadership', has led to many a successful cross-media campaigns and launches, with 25+ industry awards.