Raja Rajamannar
Chief Marketing & Communications Officer and President, Healthcare, Mastercard
Raja Rajamannar is an accomplished global marketing executive with more than 25 years of experience, the last six of which have been in the role of Chief Marketing & Communications Officer for Mastercard and President of the company’s healthcare business.
Raja is consistently recognized globally as a highly innovative and transformational leader in his field. Some of his recent accolades include: Global Marketer of the Year award by the World Federation of Advertisers, top 5 “World’s Most Influential CMOs” by Forbes, top 10 “World’s Most Innovative CMOs” by Business Insider, and inductee to The CMO Club Hall of Fame. He has also been recognized as one of AdWeek’s most tech-savvy CMOs. He recently assumed the honorary role of President of the World Federation of Advertisers. Raja has also been recognized by ANA Educational Foundation as the Marketer of the Year in 2019.
At Mastercard, Raja is responsible for successfully leading the company’s marketing transformation, including the integration of the marketing and communication functions, the development of its Priceless experiential platforms, and the creation and deployment of cutting edge marketing-led business models into the core of the company. Raja has overseen the successful evolution of Mastercard’s identity for the digital age, pioneering Mastercard’s move to become a symbol brand and launching its breakthrough sonic brand platform. Interbrand has ranked Mastercard as the fastest growing brand across all industries and categories, worldwide in 2019.
In his role as President of Healthcare, Raja has overseen the creation, development and successful scaling of Mastercard’s healthcare business across multiple regions.
Raja has been recognized for driving business transformation across a variety of geographies and industries, including consumer products, financial services and healthcare. Prior to Mastercard, he served as Chief Transformation Officer of the health insurance firm Anthem (formerly WellPoint), and served as Chief Innovation & Marketing Officer at Humana. Earlier in his career, Raja held senior management roles with Asian Paints, Unilever and Citibank.
Raja is a member of the Board of Directors of PPL Corporation and Bon Secours Mercy Health and serves on the boards of the New York City Ballet, Cintrifuse, and ANA.
Sapna Chadha
Senior Country Marketing Director, Google India and Southeast Asia, Google
Sapna Chadha is the Senior Director of Marketing for both Southeast Asia and India at Google, currently based in Singapore. She joined Google 6 years ago as Head of SMB Marketing in India. Later, she became the Country Marketing Director of India and then moved to Singapore in 2017 when she took on responsibility for Southeast Asia as well. Starting her career in the US, she moved to Asia more than a decade ago to pursue her passion in and for the region and has not looked back now spending half of her career in Asia. She cares deeply about making the internet equitable from a gender diversity lens and has been a pioneer of the Internet Saathi program where we have trained over 30 million women on digital literacy. Her team works across all of Google's consumer and business products driving growth and brand love for Google, and she has worked closely with product teams to make our products work better for the next billion users. She has a range of experiences in technology, consulting and financial services prior to joining Google. She started her career in consulting at Deloitte Consulting in New York, and worked across Product Development, Operations, Customer Marketing at American Express for the US and international markets for more than a decade. A mother of 8 year old twins and a constant traveler, life is never boring and she gets energy from each of her markets
Suparna Mitra
CEO, Watches & Wearables Division, Titan Company Limited
Suparna is the CEO of the Watches and Wearables Division of Titan Company Limited. She is an electrical engineer from Jadavpur University and a MBA from IIM, Calcutta. She has extensive business experience, mainly in the lifestyle / retail marketing area.
She started her career as a management trainee in Hindustan Lever Limited. Subsequently she joined Titan where she worked on several roles in marketing, both International and Domestic. The next stint was at Talisma Corp. as a Director – Product Marketing. She moved on to become Business Head – Lee in Arvind Brands Ltd.
She rejoined Titan and became the Global Marketing Head – Titan where she was responsible for all marketing in India and international markets. After this stint, she was the Regional Business Head- South for Titan Company Ltd where she was heading all businesses of Titan Company Ltd including watches, jewellery and eyewear for the South region.
Her last assignment was as the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for the Watches and Wearables division.
She is married to Manish Bhatnagar and they have two daughters aged 22 and 15. She is an avid reader. Travelling is a passion for the entire family.
Amit Syngle
Managing Director & CEO, Asian Paints
Amit Syngle has been working with Asian Paints since the last 30 years in various capacities across Sales, Marketing and Manufacturing.
He is currently working as MD & CEO for Asian Paints overlooking a business of more than Rs. 18900 crores in India. He has been responsible of propelling the Asian Paints brand into a league of its own and has initiated a lot of new initiatives to grow the business over the last decade.
Amit is closely associated with colour and is the so called 'Gamechanger’ for bringing colour into the AP strategy. He is also a member of the Colour Marketing Group (CMG), USA and a keen member of the AP Colour Next Trends group.
Laurent Ezekiel
Chief Marketing & Growth Officer, WPP
Laurent helps brands build a bridge to the future. He transforms agencies through winning global new business and driving client growth, making him one of the industry’s most recognised and influential leaders. Before joining WPP, Laurent held the twin role of President of Digitas, North America & International plus Groupe Client Leader for GSK. During his 16 years at Digitas, Laurent helped build the business into an award- winning global marketing and technology agency.
John Sheehy
Global Brand President, Starcom Worldwide
An experienced and passionate leader, John Sheehy brings over 30 years of experience helping clients across a wide range of categories build brands and unlock growth. His expertise lies in the convergence of media, technology and creativity, equipping clients to navigate change, disruption and transformation and engage their key consumers. A true global citizen, John has worked across international markets and brings a nuanced understanding of different cultures and the unique challenges and opportunities facing established and emerging markets.
John currently serves as Global Brand President for Starcom Worldwide, the Human Experience Company. As one of the world’s largest media agencies, Starcom operates in over 70 markets and serves leading multinational brands such as P&G, Kellogg’s, VISA, FCA, Samsung, Coca-Cola, KraftHeinz, McDonald’s and more. In his role, John is responsible for global brand vision, new business development, client partnerships, product excellence, and culture, all driving the design of experiences people want and actions brands need. He is also a key member of the Publicis Media Global Leadership Team.
A true business partner, John has dedicated his career to solving challenges on behalf of the world’s leading marketers and new establishment brands. Most recently serving as the President of Publicis Media’s Global Client Practice, John accelerated the organization’s top 50 clients, optimizing performance, enabling top talent and driving product excellence, spanning portfolios and markets.
Prior to joining Publicis Media, he was President of Global Operations at Starcom Mediavest Group, where he provided strategic direction and alignment spanning emerging and core markets and oversaw top client accounts. In addition, John led the Global Product Committee, Global Content Practice and helped steward overall performance and growth.
Previously, John dedicated two decades to the Leo Burnett Company, where he served on both the U.S. and global executive boards. During this time he lived in Chicago as well as abroad in Mexico and London, honing his true passion and skill for client service with key relationships like the Kellogg’s business – a company with whom he still works closely today.
John received his undergraduate business degree from the University of Notre Dame, and holds master’s degrees from the Purdue Krannert School of Business and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business.
Arvind Bhandari
Executive Vice President, Director Nutrition South Asia Region, Nestle
Arvind Bhandari, Executive Vice-President & Director at Nestlé India, is a corporate veteran. He has served in leading organizations such as ITC, JWT, PepsiCo and Nestle across the South Asia and South Africa region, nurturing iconic brands such as Maggi, Lay's and Pepsi, to name a few. He has been awarded the AsiaOne India's Greatest CMO 2016-17 award.
Ajay Kakar
CMO, Aditya Birla Capital
Ajay Kakar is the Chief Marketing Officer at Aditya Birla Capital Limited (ABCL), the holding company of all the financial services businesses of the Aditya Birla Group.
Aditya Birla Capital is a first of its kind mother brand in the Indian financial services industry, offering a wide spectrum of money solutions through its subsidiaries, that can meet all the life time money needs of its customers. The company, through its subsidiaries, enjoys the trust of over 20 million customers, across it’s Protecting, Investing & Financing Solutions, that include Life Insurance, Health Insurance, Mutual Funds, Home Finance, Wealth Management, Stocks & Securities and Personal Finance.
Ajay brings over three decades of expertise in consulting and financial services marketing. Prior to Aditya Birla Capital he headed the central brand team at Reliance Capital and before that, spent 14 years as Executive Director at Ogilvy and Mather, where he headed dual portfolios of Financial Practice and Public Relations.
Ajay has been invited to partner many industry bodies in an advisory and office bearer capacity; like the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Public Relations Consultants Association of India (PRCAI) and The Advertising Club of India. He is currently on the Board of Trustees of the India Brand Equity Foundation, an initiative of the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India.
Nidhi Hola
Director, Integrated Marketing, Microsoft
Ajay Kakar is the Chief Marketing Officer at Aditya Birla Capital Limited (ABCL), the holding company of all the financial services businesses of the Aditya Birla Group.
Aditya Birla Capital is a first of its kind mother brand in the Indian financial services industry, offering a wide spectrum of money solutions through its subsidiaries, that can meet all the life time money needs of its customers. The company, through its subsidiaries, enjoys the trust of over 20 million customers, across it’s Protecting, Investing & Financing Solutions, that include Life Insurance, Health Insurance, Mutual Funds, Home Finance, Wealth Management, Stocks & Securities and Personal Finance.
Ajay brings over three decades of expertise in consulting and financial services marketing. Prior to Aditya Birla Capital he headed the central brand team at Reliance Capital and before that, spent 14 years as Executive Director at Ogilvy and Mather, where he headed dual portfolios of Financial Practice and Public Relations.
Ajay has been invited to partner many industry bodies in an advisory and office bearer capacity; like the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Public Relations Consultants Association of India (PRCAI) and The Advertising Club of India. He is currently on the Board of Trustees of the India Brand Equity Foundation, an initiative of the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India.
Dilen Gandhi
Sr Director and Category Head– Foods, PepsiCo India
Mr. Dilen Gandhi is the Senior Director and Category Head, Foods at PepsiCo India. In his present role Dilen is responsible for leading end-to-end marketing and P&L for PepsiCo India’s largest, fastest growing, most profitable portfolio. Dilen has been leading a cross- functional team, including 4 direct reports, to shape the future of the Indian Snacks market.
Having been associated with PepsiCo for over 3 years, Dilen has been spearheading growth of the Foods business across key markets. He has led the flagship brand, LAY’S to double-digit growth, behind a combination of strong marketing inputs and seamless execution and has played a key role in expanding LAY’S portfolio by reigniting LAY’S’ Maxx premium PC and scaling-up LAY’S Crispz/Twistz platform. He also successfully launched Doritos in India and achieved market leadership within eight months of launch.
An accomplished international marketer with more than 15 years of successful brand building, marketing and sales experience at blue- chip FMCGs like PepsiCo, P&G and Gillette, Dilen Gandhi has delivered unprecedented results such as building $100M dollar businesses and achieving record market shares in a multitude of business situations, ranging from new launches to turning around struggling businesses.
Dilen has a remarkable and comprehensive commercial experience, including sales management, commercial marketing, P&L management, brand strategy & innovation across multiple product categories like Snacks, Diapers, Sanitary Napkins, Fabric Care and Male Grooming. Additionally, he has a market experience spanning ASEAN, Middle East & Africa.
An outstanding leader and team builder, Dilen is truly passionate about all things marketing. What excites him as a marketer is the “privilege of meeting hundreds of people during consumer research at their homes”, whom he would not have ordinarily met or spoken to.
Dilen Gandhi holds an MBA in Marketing from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies. He is also an alumnus of Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai where he pursued his Graduation in Commerce (Accounting and Finance).
Dilen’s detailed professional journey can be seen at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dilengandhi/
Moksh Chopra
Chief Marketing Officer, KFC India
Moksh Chopra, Chief Marketing Officer, KFC India, has been associated with Yum! Brands since the past decade. An experienced marketer with over 15 years of experience across FMCG and retail brands, Moksh joined Yum as a Senior Brand Manager for KFC back in 2010. Having spent over 10 years at Yum! Brands, he has led the Innovation team, as well as Marketing Activation, prior to his current role where he leads Marketing & Brand Campaigns.
Prior to KFC, Moksh worked with CavinKare India in Sales & Marketing for over 5 years. He holds a post Graduate Diploma in Management from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, and is a graduate from St. Xaviers, Kolkata. Moksh is passionate about music (sings & plays the guitar) and enjoys cricket and tennis, when not eating or thinking about fried chicken.
Ruchira Jaitly
Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) – India, HMD Global
Ruchira Jaitly is the Chief Marketing Officer at HMD Global for India. She joined the organization in August 2019 bringing with her more than 21 years of work experience spanning Strategy, Sales and Marketing, Innovation, Business Start-Up and Impact Business Creation with global majors Unilever, Pepsico and DSM. Now at HMD Global, she leads Marketing for the smart and feature phones business across India.
Ruchira is an accomplished professional, known in the industry for her marketing and analytical expertise. She has been instrumental in launching new products and building new categories across her career.
As Director, Strategy and Nutrition at DSM, she led a B2C start up business, with a portfolio of need-based Food & Beverage solutions to combat the challenge of malnutrition. She successfully launched a complete business, from building strategy to developing local manufacturing and delivering market execution, balancing both business and social impact, on this key issue affecting 800 million people in India (and over 2 billion people globally).
Prior to DSM, she spent her time building some of the biggest brands for Pepsico in India, like Kurkure and Mountain Dew. She worked across the portfolio creating award-winning scale consumer campaigns (Crash the IPL, Kurkure launch and Lay’s World Cup); harnessing India energies for innovations (Nimbooz Masala Soda and Lays, and Kurkure formats and flavors) and leveraging global playbooks to bring alive the best loved brands from Pepsi, 7UP, Mountain Dew and Mirinda to Lays and Cheetos. Ruchira’s last role at Pepsico as Senior Director Marketing – Beverages, gave her the experience of managing Pepsi IPL, one of the biggest consumer mandates ever.
Siddhartha Butalia
CMO, AirAsia
Siddhartha Butalia is the Chief Marketing Officer of AirAsia India, a joint venture between Tata Sons and AirAsia Investment. He has an MBA in Marketing & Strategy from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, is a post-graduate from the Xavier Institute of Communications and graduated with Honours in Economics from Sri Ram College, Delhi University. Siddhartha has been an editorial panel member and published author in various industry publications and international marketing journals since his first article on ‘B uildin g a C y b e r h o m e ’ in T h e E c o n o mic Tim e s on 6th August 1998. He is a futurist and seasoned speaker on travel & tourism, marketing strategy and digital ecosystems at seminars across the world.
Siddhartha began his career in advertising at Ogilvy and JWT, working on campaigns that won awards at Cannes and the Asia Pacific AdFest; and managing multinational accounts like Unilever and Nestlé. As a Tata Administrative Services Officer, Siddhartha worked on the Tata Nano project, built the Ginger hotel business model for metros, worked on the integration of Tata Global Beverages with the acquisition of Tetley, Eight O’Clock Coffee and Himalayan water and developed the internationalisation strategy for the ‘Tata’ brand in the US, UK, China and South Africa. Siddhartha has over a decade of senior leadership experience in Europe and Asia-Pacific, launching and heading iconic brands, from being Brand Manager of Tetley Tea in the UK to overseeing strategy and business development for 15 Asia Pacific countries at Tata Global Beverages. As Marketing Director at the Taj Group of Hotels, Siddhartha launched the Vivanta brand (now a Harvard Business School case study), led Sales and Marketing teams across APAC, Europe and Africa and contributed to the Tata group’s European Union agenda. Siddhartha is an ardent traveler, enjoys backpacking, swimming and scuba diving and has organized marine awareness workshops and SCUBA camps to help protect coral reefs & aquatic ecosystems.
Vivek Bhargava
CEO, DAN Performance group, Dentsu Aegis Network
Vivek Bhargava is CEO, DAN Performance Group. A digital entrepreneur and one of the most respected digital evangelists in the country; Vivek heads all the digital performance agencies of Dentsu Aegis Network and is responsible for their growth and expansion of the DAN Performance Group through additional acquisitions in the performance space. A frontrunner in the digital revolution in India, Vivek believes ‘digital’ is much more than mere marketing medium – a catalyst and multiplier across every aspect of business. Prior to this, Vivek was the CEO at iProspect India, a part of the Dentsu Aegis Network.
Vivek began his entrepreneurial journey in 1997 when he founded Communicate 2. The company joined hands with iProspect from the Dentsu Aegis Network in 2012 and led the new entity, iProspect Communicate 2, as Founder and Managing Director. The company was rebranded as iProspect India at the end of 2015 with Vivek as CEO until 2016, when he assumed the present position.
DAN Performance Group includes iProspect India, SVG Media, Sokrati and DAN Consult. While iProspect India and Sokrati are leaders in digital performance business, SVG leads when it comes to digital marketing and DAN Consult is a consulting arm helping companies grow revenue using digital.
Recently, DAN launched a Dentsu venture fund, Vivek is one of the three partners running it. Apart from this, he is on the board of IAMAI and now the chair of the IAMAI Start-up committee
Vivek is an accomplished national level table tennis player and has won multiple laurels in the sport worldwide, including 2 silver medals in the 39 + nationals in 2018 and multiple Gold Medal in the Maharashtra State Championships. He is also an avid chess player and an amateur paragliding pilot. A complete travel buff and lover of new experiences, Vivek has travelled to more than 55 countries in the world on various projects and tournaments.
Connect with Vivek on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Pawan Sarda
Group CMO (Marketing, Digital & e-commerce), Future Group India
Close to 20 years of work experience in Retail, Housing, Digital, Content and Commerce.
Some of key highlights are, being a part of startup team of Big Bazaar to heading marketing function for Future Retail.
Currently leading Digital at Future Group. Spearheading online and offline for all Future Group formats and also driving ecommerce businesses.
Awarded as Digital Marketing leader by Internet and Mobile Association of India, Marketer of the Year-Retail by IAA Leadership Awards.
Mr. K. R. Venkatadri
Chief Operating Officer - Nutrition Sciences, Tata Chemicals
Mr. Venkatadri is currently the Chief Operating Officer - Nutrition Sciences at Tata Chemicals since August 2020/. In his previous role as the Chief Innovation and Digital Officer, he was responsible for all IT, Digital and Innovation efforts across Tata Chemicals and all its subsidiaries. Additionally, he provided oversight on the Innovation and Research facilities across Tata Chemicals, Rallis and Metahelix.
Prior to this he was serving as the Chief Operating Officer at Rallis India. He has been associated with Tata Chemicals for about 15 years now. Earlier he had worked in Hindustan Unilever Limited for 12 years after completing his Post Graduation from IIM Lucknow and graduation from VJTI, Mumbai.
Shamsuddin Jasani
Group MD, South Asia, Isobar
Shamsuddin Jasani Group Managing Director Isobar South Asia, Practice head Media and Programmatic Isobar APAC, Exec Sponsor AMNET India
Shamsuddin Jasani (Shams) has been in the digital industry for over 17 years. He launched Isobar in India in August 2008, he has grown the agency’s billing size from zero to USD 150 million and staff number grew from four to 200-member strong team.
Under his leadership, the agency has been achieved the distinction of being the Digital Agency of the year for India for three years running from2015-2017 as well as south asia for two years which is given by Campaign Asia, Isobar has also won Digital Agency of the Year India Silver awards in 2012, 2014 and . Isobar also debuted at number 4 on top digital agencies in the Brand Equity Agency reckoner for 2015. He also oversees the AMNET operations in India. Shams is also a board committee of Dentsu Aegis Network’s Management in India as well as leading the charge on digital as a part of the Digital Council for Dentsu Aegis Network. During his tenure with Isobar, he has overseen two successful acquisitions.
He’s been named an A-Lister on Campaign India’s top 500 people in advertising and marketing list and has featured on e4m's Impact Magazine’s Digital Power100 list last two years in a row. He was also voted by brand equity as one of media's valued players by brand equity across media's. He is one of the few people who has an experience as a Media Owner, agency and client.
In addition to this Shams also oversees the programmatic operations for DAN in India and under his guidance AMNET has grown over 300% in the last 2 years.