Amrit Kiran Singh
Executive ChairmanAmrit Kiran Singh is the Executive Chairman of the International Spirits & Wines Association of India (the association of the blue chip multinational companies in the spirits and wines business- Diageo – United Spirits Ltd, Pernod Ricard, Moet Hennessy, Beam Suntory, Bacardi, Remy Martin, Brown Forman, William Grant and Edrington). He is passionate about changing the image of the Indian spirits and wine industry and unshackling it from the excessive and mindless regulation to which it is subjected. Amrit is also the Vice Chairman of the World Spirits Alliance(WSA) which is headquartered in Brussels.
Amrit’s goal has been to retire from heading commercial operations by the time he was 50years old, to do things of his choosing. He was finally able to afford to do this at age 55, after establishing Jack Daniels as a top 3 imported spirits brand in India (beginning from zero sales in India in 1995) and Brown Forman as a profitable company within the first 5 years of its operations, in India- the only MNC alcoholic beverage company to achieve the feat in India. He took early retirement after heading the commercial operations of Brown Forman for almost 20years to pursue his passions- corporate affairs & public policy, travelling and golf) in that order).
Amrit has also been the Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce (the chamber of approximately 400 companies that have invested in India – Coca Cola, Pepsi, GE, American Express, Citibank, Motorola, Boeing, Walmart, to name a few). The Chamber campaigned successfully with the Indian government to initiate second generation reforms such as increasing caps on foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, defence, insurance sectors amongst others and also the easing of regulations for foreign investment in India, in general. This resulted in US companies collectively bringing in over $60 billion in Foreign Direct Investment while annual bilateral trade stood well over $110 billion poised for much bigger growth in the coming years. He was the host for President George Bush’s key note address at Purana Quilla, New Delhi, during his India visit, in 2005. Amrit has been honored with a “life membership” of the AMCHAM.
Amrit has been honoured by being made a ‘Keeper Of The Quaich’ for his relentless services to the Scotch Industry at an elaborate ceremony at Blair Castle, in Scotland.
He is a passionate traveler having travelled to 94 countries (bucket list 100) and though London continues to be his favorite city and Tuscany his favorite region, he specially enjoys travelling in the lands less travelled – Estonia, Sardinia, Latvia, Georgia and the wilderness of Kenya, Tanzania and Kazakhstan.
Amrit also farms lychees on orchards, on the Indo-Nepal border (District Paru) and is a passionate gardener
Amrit lives in Gurgaon with his wife Farah, two daughters Kritika and Meher and dogs Bondy and Maximus. Farah, his wife is extremely active on the theatre scene and is the world’s best cook! Their home is the venue of numerous enjoyable impromptu evenings with friends.
TOP 10 ACHIEVEMENTS
Under his leadership, ISWAI has blazed a path of achievements that had not been witnessed in the beverage alcohol industry in its past history. This has been done throughan three pronged strategy of a.) Ensuring that all its members signup to and follow the ISWAI Ethics Code, b.)Proposing solutions that are “win-win” for government and industry Top 10 significant achievements since 2017 have been the following:
- DPIIT included 8 operations of the alcobev industry (a sin industry) in its parameters to rank states on Ease of Doing Business (EODB) .This caused most states including Maharsahtra, Punjab, UP to change policy to improve EODB. Niti Aayog’s CEO sent “best practice” recommendations on EODB in alcobev industry to all state Chief Secretaries to further accelerate the process
- Created new Excise Policy for UP which doubled revenue from UP in two years and increased profitable business for industry, significantly
- Introduced the concept of “premiumisation” to all states that if implemented would increase revenue to states, profitability for industry and reduce per capita consumption of alcohol ( in line with WHO requirements)
- Led the industry team to ensure that impact of being left out of GST was significantly mitigated
- Ensured “ duality of control” issue between states and FSSAI was amicably resolved as required by industry without expensive and time consuming litigation
- Tamil Nadu progressively being opened up for MNC companies who do not produce in Tamil Nadu
- Piloted Product Standards for alco-bev industry being created for the first time by getting nominated on the committee created for the purpose. FSSAI Standards that are now enforced are to the satisfaction of industry
- Prevented severe damage to India’s Duty Free Market by ensuring that FSSAI ‘s Labelling Rules do not apply to the Duty Free Market
- Ensured that passenger Duty Free Quota was not required to 1 Litre- after it had been announced in the press- in 2020-21 Budget
- Played an important role in ensuring that” Food & Drink” became one of the 3 Focus Areas between UK and India for the UK-India Bilateral Trade dialogue. This has now gained momentum and has this potential to reduce BCD in the near future.
There have been countless other routine achievements for industry on a regular basis. In addition to the above Amrit was a member of the Core Group that initiated this formalization of the World Spirits Alliance (WSA) to deal with WHO, WTO, UN and other international and national agencies and currently serves as its Vice Chairman.
