The Board of Directors of the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Pharmaceuticals at its meeting held on October 17, has appointed Bhushan Akshikar as a Managing Director of the company for a period of four years effective 1st December, 2022. He succeeds Sridhar Venkatesh who is moving to a new senior role within GSK Group effective 30th November 2022.

Akshikar is a seasoned business leader with a successful track record of over 26 years across local and area roles within the pharmaceutical industry.

He joined GSK India in September 2011 to lead the specialty and commercial excellence business units.  In 2014, he was appointed Head of the Mass Markets business. He was subsequently elevated as the Managing Director of the publicly listed entity of GSK in Nigeria, Africa in end- 2016. Apart from a strong business turn-around, he also built a high performing, resilient team. He then moved to Turkey in 2019 to lead GSK’s Vaccines business to drive strategic initiatives and launches in both private and tender segments in the Middle East, Russia CIS & Africa region. In December 2020, he returned to India as the Commercial Head of the General Medicines business and has led a cultural transformation journey for the large Rs 2500+ crore General Medicines business. He has built a strong leadership pipeline reflecting in leadership position and improved competitive performance of several flagship brands of GSK.

Before joining GSK, Akshikar spent 15 years with Janssen, Johnson & Johnson in various roles leading both specialty and primary care business units in local and regional positions living in India, Korea and Belgium.