Sumit Bothra

Sumit, fondly known as Sudoku Champ, is currently the Vice President – Trade Marketing & Development (North). He is heading sales and operations for North India for ITC's Cigarette and FMCG business. 

Sumit's love story with ITC started in 2007 as a summer intern and the bond became so strong that Sumit switched from being a hard-core finance guy (till his graduation) to a marketing professional. In his 16 strong years with ITC, Sumit has worked in multiple roles giving him 360 degree experience of sales operations, marketing and strategy across both Tobacco and FMCG businesses. Some of his career highlights include successful launch of Multigrain Atta, redefining the sales process for FMCG business using AI / ML based models that helped enhance productivity significantly (along with BCG), accelerated growth in rural (2x of industry) by breaking the Accessibility barrier and creating future ready models of distribution.

He is an alumnus of St Xavier's Kolkata and XLRI Jamshedpur.

Coming to his other love, Sudoku, Sumit's sudoku journey started in 2005 when the game was first introduced in India and soon his passion made him part of the National Sudoku Team in 2007 and since then he has represented India at various international competitions including World Sudoku Championships in Prague, Brazil, Hungary, Singapore, Croatia, Beijing and London with a career best ranking of 13th (between 2007-2014). He has also co-authored a book of 120 handcrafted sudokus called Sudoku Mix along with other Indian players and has coached the first Indian Junior Sudoku Team.

His favourite quote - "Luck is the residue of hard work. The harder you work, the luckier you get"