After 12 years at Aditya Birla Group Ashok Gupta, Group General Counsel moves on to start Counsel practice; Deepak Acharya to take over

Ashok Gupta is moving on from Aditya Birla Group after being at the helm of legal affairs for the past 12 years. Ashok joined Aditya Birla Group in 2010 from Hindustan Lever where he was Executive Director, Legal & Secretarial, Corporate Affairs and Properties.

Ashok laid the foundation for setting up legal department headed by senior general counsel. He created an integrated general counsels team of group companies, led strategy on important group level litigations, and key policy matters where he reported directly to the Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Over the last decade Aditya Birla group saw several key litigations in the coal scam, AGR litigation, important acquisitions and merger of Columbian Chemicals, Vodafone merger with Idea, Grasim – Nuvo merger, JV with Varde Partners and investment in Masaba, Sabyasachi, Aditya Birla Capital etc.

Ashok intends to do Counsel practice and advice on corporate matters out of his office in Mumbai.

Ashok commented, “I have been wanting to practice and become a member of the Bar for sometime. I had stayed on because of urgent and important challenges confronting the group. It was painful for me to part with the Group, which I believed is the best amongst Indian entrepreneurs run organization under the leadership of Mr. K.M.Birla.

It was very generous of Mr. Birla to ask me to be at the helm for the next few years. But, it's time to start the next chapter and I feel I am leaving the Aditya Birla Group on strong footing at the hands of my young colleagues from whom I have learnt so much”.

Ashok has been internationally recognized in the GC powerlist by Chambers Global and Legal 500 for his path breaking work. Ashok did his Graduation and Master in Laws from the University of Delhi and had joined Hindustan Lever as a Legal Manager in 1989.

Wipro’s General Counsel will join Aditya Birla Group in October.Deepak Acharya is a FMCG veteran with nearly 25 years at Proctor & Gamble before joining Wipro.

Deepak graduated law from Government Law College, Mumbai.

Acharya, who will be joining Aditya Birla in October, has over 30 years of experience working as in-house counsel. He spent more than 25 of those working at the Mumbai, Singapore and Switzerland offices of Procter & Gamble.

In 2018, he moved to Wipro as Senior Vice-President and General Counsel.