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exchange4media presents the 7th edition of Indian Marketing Awards 3rd February 2021 that will set yet another standard of marketing excellence in India.

The awards recognise the fact that marketing is critical for organic growth of a business and its central role in creating, communicating, capturing and sustaining value for an Organisation.

The awards will be presented to organisations, individuals and teams who have achieved extraordinary success from innovative and effective marketing practices, having regard to the particular circumstances of different industries and diversity of marketing programs.

GRAND JURY 2020

Bharat Puri

Jury Chair

Bharat Puri
Managing Director
Anchit Nayar
CEO-Retail & CMO
Ghazal Alagh
Co-Founder, Chief Innovations Officer
Preeti Reddy
CEO – South Asia, Insights Division
Suparna Mitra
CEO-Watches and Wearables Division
Sushant Dash
President, Packaged Beverages (India, Bangladesh and Middle East)
Taranjeet Singh
MD, SEA & India

Divya Karani
CEO, Dentsu X India


Coming soon...

Vaishali Verma
CEO, Initiative


Coming soon...

Preeti Reddy
CEO – South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar


Coming soon...

Taranjeet Singh
MD, SEA & India, Criteo


Taranjeet Singh is Managing Director for Southeast Asia and India, Criteo. Heis responsible for driving continued growth and steering Criteo’s business strategy for the region. He also works closely with regional leadership to strengthen Criteo’s current advertiser and partner relationships, and spearhead new business development.

Taranjeet’s priority is to deliver value-adding counsel and transformation to Criteo’s customers in a rapidly changing world, propelling Criteo’s vision of powering marketers globally with trusted and impactful advertising.

With more than 17 years of leadership experience in Asia Pacific’s media and technology industry, Taranjeet’s expertise includes digital advertising and marketing,integrated business strategy anddevelopment, and operations management. He joins Criteo after nearly two years at ZEE5 India, an online video-on-demand platform.He was Chief Revenue Officer and Business Head, where he helped establish the revenue and business operations in the company. Prior to that, Taranjet was India Country Director for Twitter and Sales Director for BBC News, roles in which he was responsible forcommercial operations.

Taranjeet is based in New Delhi, India.

Sudhir Langer
CEO, Raymond Consumer Care


Sudhir Langer is the CEO of Raymond Consumer Care since March 2020.

He joined Raymond Consumer Care in May 2019 as the Business Director wherein he was responsible for providing strategic and operational leadership with P&L accountability for the Personal & Home Care cluster. A seasoned sales & marketing professional with 20+ years, Sudhir has an illustrious experience managing different categories and brands within the consumer goods industry. He has worked in India and the UK and has rich experience in global brand marketing, category marketing and innovation.

Earlier, he was associated with Tata Global Beverages as the Vice President & Global Category Director for the Tea category. He has also worked with Reckitt Benckiser and Colgate Palmolive in various roles in sales, customer marketing and global brand management.

Sudhir is an Architect and is a marketing post graduate from MDI, Gurgaon.

Rajesh Ramakrishnan
MD, Perfetti Van Melle India Pvt Ltd


Coming soon...

Sushant Dash
President, Packaged Beverages (India, Bangladesh and Middle East), Tata Consumer Products Ltd


Mr. Dash is responsible for driving the growth strategy and outcomes including innovations for the Packaged Beverages category in India and for the overall business in Bangladesh and the Middle East. He has successfully handled various strategic and operational roles for the Company. Some of his previous roles include Marketing Head for India, Team Leader of a Venture Team based in the UK and Senior Director – Marketing and Business Development – for Tata Starbucks. He has also worked for ORG Marg in various capacities in Consumer and Market Research. Prior to this, he was the Global Brand Director of Tata Consumer.

Sanjeev Srinivasan
MD & CEO, Bharti Axa General Life Insurance


Sanjeev Srinivasan is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at Bharti Axa General Insurance, since December 21, 2016. Sanjeev had joined Bharti AXA General Insurance on August 09, 2016 as the Chief Commercial and Principal Officer.

He is a seasoned insurance industry professional with a stellar track record of over 20 years of experience, spanning both Life and General Insurance, manufacturing and logistics. He previously worked with ICICI Lombard, where he was heading Marketing, Banc assurance and E-business in his last assignment. Sanjeev played a key role in developing the direct sales, agency sales, banc assurance and digital channels of ICICI Lombard. He was also responsible for the brand, marketing corporate communication and PR function. He has earlier worked with leading companies including Fullerton India Credit Limited, ING Life Insurance, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, Xerox India Limited and DHL Worldwide.

Sanjeev is a post graduate in management, and graduate in science with statistics as a specialization.

Sarbvir Singh
CEO, Policybazaar.com


Sarbvir Singh heads Policybazaar.com, India’s leading insurtech company. He is responsible for the overall business performance of PolicyBazaar.

Prior to joining Policybazaar, he was a venture capitalist and also served in senior leadership positions with digital and media companies. He was most recently the Managing Partner of WaterBridge Ventures, a leading early-stage venture fund. 

Over his career, Sarbvir has led venture investments in industry-leading companies like BookMyShow, Yatra, DoubtNut, ZipLoan and Webchutney. He served as the founding Managing Director of Capital18, Network18’s venture arm and as Regional Advisor to JP Morgan PEG for their investments in India. He also held leadership positions with Citigroup in New York and Emerson Electric in Hong Kong.

Sarbvir is a graduate of IIT Delhi and holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.

Ghazal Alagh
Co-Founder, Chief Innovations Officer, Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd. (Mamaearth & The Derma Co.)


A corporate trainer turned artist-cum-entrepreneur Ghazal Alagh co-founded MamaEarth driven by the passion for making early parenting stress-free. Ghazal spearheads Innovation, Community and New Brand Initiatives. Being a millennial, she understands the psychology and personal care products requirements and works closely with a large number of consumers to develop products that address problems they face on a daily basis.

Ghazal’s overarching vision is to make this world a better and safer place with toxin-free, MadeSafe-certified products for everyone. With a Bachelors in Information Technology and Intensive Courses in Modern Art, Design and Applied Arts from New York Academy of Arts, she started her career with NIIT as a Corporate Trainer. As a part of her role, she trained managers and engineers from various IT companies in SQL, J2ME, and Oracle. Ghazal has been awarded at the BusinessWorld 40 under 40 Awards in association with BW Disrupt for being a change-maker and corporate leader. She has also been recognized amongst top 10 women artists in India, nationally and internationally. Having straddled three different roles —a corporate trainer, an artist, and a mother— Ghazal has a diverse skill set that helps her build the MamaEarth brand in such a unique way.

Vishal Bhatia
CEO - New Supply, Swiggy


Vishal Bhatia is the Chief Executive Officer for the New Supply business unit at Swiggy, India’s leading on-demand delivery platform. In his role, Vishal leads Swiggy’s efforts to bridge existing gaps in high quality food options as well as create new and innovative models to boost supply and create additional revenue streams for the ecosystem.

An entrepreneurial business leader with a strong belief that great results come from a deep-rooted ‘growth mindset’, an unrelenting attitude to win consumers, and a sharp eye on ensuring flawless execution, Vishal comes with more than a two-decade prior experience in blue-chip organisations including Reckitt Benckiser (RB), PepsiCo & Britannia (Danone). In the scheme of larger things, he has headed strategic business model shifts through his roles in India, South-East Asia and the U.K. resulting in accelerated revenue growth and enhanced profitability for those businesses.

Through the years, he has led business creation and transformation by (re)designing operating models, portfolio & innovation strategy, organisation design, white space expansion into new geographies and new categories, trends & foresight led award-winning communication, ROI led investment optimization & digital communication models.

Vishal holds an MBA from MDI Gurgaon and a degree in Electrical Engineering from PEC, Chandigarh. About Swiggy Founded in 2014, Swiggy is India’s leading on-demand delivery platform with a vision to elevate the quality of life for the urban consumer by offering unparalleled convenience. It connects consumers to thousands of restaurants and stores in over 500 cities. Using innovative technology, Swiggy provides a hassle-free, fast and reliable delivery experience. Every order delivered by Swiggy’s fleet of independent delivery partners engaged on a principal to principal basis, ensures a host of customer-centric features like lightning fast delivery, no minimum order value, live order tracking, and 24/7 customer support.

Sunil Kataria
CEO- India & SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd


Sunil joined GCPL in 2011, where he successfully led the merger of the sales and marketing organisations of Godrej Consumer Products and the erstwhile Godrej Sara Lee. He has diverse work experience across the FMCG and Consumer Services sectors in Sales, Marketing and business roles, including a highly successful 12 year stint at Marico Industries. Post this, Sunil served as a Business Head in retail and telecom companies, leading large and complex business operations. Prior to joining the Godrej Group, he was Chief Operating Officer of the Idea Rajasthan Circle, where he headed business operations, was responsible for the P&L, and led a major turnaround of the Rajasthan business. Sunil is Chairman of the Indian Society of Advertisers and closely associated with the CMO forum, FICCI FMCG Committee and Advertising Standards Council of India. A graduate in Economics from Delhi University, he is also an MBA in Marketing from the Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad. Sunil is a staunch practitioner of the spirit of 'Possibility Thinking' and believes that this, coupled with a passion for flawless execution, is the biggest competitive advantage in today's world. An avid reader, he writes Hindi poetry, and loves watching Hindi movies and Hollywood science fiction.

Arvind Mediratta
MD & CEO, METRO Cash & Carry India


Arvind is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at METRO Cash & Carry India Pvt. Ltd. In his current role since 2016, he has been instrumental in steering METRO into newer geographies and building a robust culture of customer-centricity within the organisation. Within two years under his leadership, METRO has added seven outlets to its portfolio of 25 wholesale stores currently operational in India. An industry veteran with over 27 years of rich experience in wholesale, retail, general management and marketing; Mr. Mediratta has worked with some of the leading Fortune 500 corporations such as Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool and Yum! Brands.

Prior to heading the METRO Cash and Carry India, Mr. Mediratta was with Walmart US spear-heading multi-billion dollar businesses for the entire US market, first as Global Officer and Vice-President for Operations (Texas) and then as Global Officer and VP Merchandising for Fresh. Before taking up this global leadership assignment, Mr. Mediratta was the driving force behind successfully setting up Walmart’s Cash and Carry business in India and establishing 20 wholesale outlets in a record five years’ time till 2013. As the Chief Operating Officer of Walmart India, he built Walmart’s Cash and Carry India team overseeing key functions such as Buying, Merchandising, Operations, Sales, Business Development, Marketing, Logistics, Supply Chain, e-commerce, HR, Finance etc. He has been recognized globally by Walmart US for being instrumental in scripting the success story of Walmart’s Cash and Carry business in India.

Before his decade long stint at Walmart, Mr. Mediratta worked with Yum! Brand as the Chief Marketing Officer for South Asia for Pizza Hut, KFC, Tacobell and A&W in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Mauritius. He was instrumental in relaunching the brand KFC successfully in India. Prior to this, he was the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Whirlpool India and Marico India respectively. Mr. Mediratta started his career with Procter & Gamble (P&G) driving the successful brand launch of ‘Ariel’ detergent in 1991. In his decade long tenure at P&G, he worked in various challenging marketing and brand roles in India, Singapore and Bangkok.

Mr Mediratta was rated amongst ‘25 Hottest Young Executives in India’ by Business Today in 2006; ‘Top 8 Marketers in India’ by The Economic Times in 2003; ‘50 most Powerful People in Media, Advertising and Marketing in India’ by PITCH in 2004.

Mr. Mediratta is the Chair- FICCI Committee on Retail and Internal Trade in 2020 and Co-Chair of Food Processing Committee, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Mr. Mediratta is a B. Tech graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He did his MBA from IIM- Calcutta and was part of the ‘Roll of Honour’ of the institute.

A travel enthusiast, Mr. Mediratta has explored many uncharted places and discovered different cultures, cuisines and varying food habits in different geographies of India and US. Mr. Mediratta is married to Ms. Rashmi Mediratta, an art enthusiast and home-maker, and has two children Tanushree and Niranjan.

Vaishali Banerjee
MD, Platinum Guild India Pvt Ltd


Vaishali heads the Indian operations for Platinum Guild International with the mandate to develop a sustainable platinum jewellery market in India. Under her leadership, PGI India has created a new high-end, value added category for platinum in a mature and traditional jewellery market and delivered an incremental business opportunity for the industry.

Vaishali is a strategically driven marketing professional with proven success in new category and market development and brand leadership in the lifestyle and luxury categories.

Dinesh Chhabra
CEO, Usha International


A chartered accountant by professions, Dinesh Chhabra is the current CEO of Usha International. He spent a large part of his professional life in the automotive sector before joining Usha as CFO and then grew into the CEO’s role about 10 years ago.

His specialization lies in leading and managing change and organizational transformation across all layers of organizational deployment i.e. operational, tactical, and strategic. He has been part of various successful profitability turnarounds in a systematic and organic manner helping companies increase their market capitalization multifold through structural and strategic initiatives. He has also managed effective transition across stakeholders including promoters, leadership, and teams thus enabling the organization to shift the growth trajectories.

Dinesh has been part of various social initiatives including mentoring start-up units, as well as providing support and professional direction to orphaned children who need guidance.

His wife Neelam, a lawyer by profession, actively supports all his social initiatives.

Dinesh Chhabra
CEO, Usha International


A chartered accountant by professions, Dinesh Chhabra is the current CEO of Usha International. He spent a large part of his professional life in the automotive sector before joining Usha as CFO and then grew into the CEO’s role about 10 years ago.

His specialization lies in leading and managing change and organizational transformation across all layers of organizational deployment i.e. operational, tactical, and strategic. He has been part of various successful profitability turnarounds in a systematic and organic manner helping companies increase their market capitalization multifold through structural and strategic initiatives. He has also managed effective transition across stakeholders including promoters, leadership, and teams thus enabling the organization to shift the growth trajectories.

Dinesh has been part of various social initiatives including mentoring start-up units, as well as providing support and professional direction to orphaned children who need guidance.

His wife Neelam, a lawyer by profession, actively supports all his social initiatives.

Rohit Gothi
CEO, Hero Cycles Ltd


Rohit Gothi is leading one of the largest cycle companies in the world as its CEO. He has been at the helm of this global company since last 3 years and has ensured not only HERO continues grow and stays the undisputed market leader with almost 43% share in India market but also grows the premium bicycles market in India through Firefox Bikes Ltd and the European market through its UK subsidiary Avocet Sports Ltd, Manchester.

A leader par excellence, Rohit has mastered his skills as a business leader over an impressive career spanning more than 26 years across multiple industries in India.

Having started as management trainee at Shalimar Paints way back in the early 1990s, his grounding and most of his initial learnings have happened in Marico a leading personal and food conglomerate where he spent 14 years in various roles in sales, marketing and new businesses. Some of the critical roles he handled in Marico included Head, Sales and Head, New Business.

Post Marico, Rohit set up the Indian business of UK based multinational Lornamead which has brands like YARDLEY as its Managing Director.

Before joining Hero Cycles as Chief Executive Officer, Rohit spent four years with the bottling arm of Coca-Cola India, HCCB where he was on the board and was Executive Director - Operations for the country.

His stint in Coke was preceded with a very successful time in telecom major Bharti Airtel where he was leading the circles of Delhi and Rajasthan as HUB CEO.

His experience spanning multiple fields, from telecom and beverages to personal care, has helped him closely watch the growth and evolution of different market sectors in the post liberalization phase of the Indian economy and has also helped deeply enrich his understanding of B2C businesses.

As the CEO of Hero Cycles, Rohit passionately drives the vision of MOVING INDIA, FIT INDIA AND GREEN INDIA through widespread usage of cycles and e-cycles by all Indians through brands like Hero, Hero Sprint, Lectro and Firefox, among others.

Anchit Nayar
CEO-Retail & CMO, Nykaa


Anchit Nayar, joined Nykaa after working for over 6 years with Morgan Stanley in New York. At Morgan Stanley, Anchit worked as an Investment Banker in the telecom and media M&A group and spent time in the High Yield Bond Department and most recently as a Vice President in Equity Sales & Trading.

Anchit joined the Nykaa team as the CEO - Nykaa Retail to lead the Firm’s offline strategy with a focus on expanding the physical store footprint. Nykaa has the ambitious goal of being one of the country’s largest offline beauty retailers to complement its dominant position online and serve as a one stop shop for the increasingly sophisticated Indian consumer. Anchit has helped grow the retail business from 25 to 70 stores and the division's revenues by 300%+ in a span of 18 months.

In 2020, Anchit took lead of the marketing function at Nykaa, spearheading digital, social media, mainline and customer/inbound marketing, and public relations, continuing the hard work of building Nykaa as a dominant and innovative marketing force.

Suparna Mitra
CEO-Watches and Wearables Division, Titan Company Ltd.


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.

Sandeep Kataria
CEO, Bata India Ltd.


Mr. Sandeep Kataria is a business and marketing leader with over 25 years of experience in the consumer products and retail industry across the developing and developed markets.

Since August 2017, Sandeep has been the CEO of Bata India Ltd. At Bata India Ltd, Mr. Kataria has been tasked with the transformation of the footwear giant into a modern, contemporary brand for generations to come. Over the last 4 quarters, Bata India has seen a significant upswing in brand equity, sales and profits. Sandeep’s strategy to force reappraisal of the Iconic Brand with new look stores, contemporary new designs and cut-through insight driven advertising is being positively noticed by consumers across the country.

Prior to taking over the charge at Bata India Ltd, Sandeep was the Chief Commercial Officer at Vodafone, leading the Marketing and Services function for the telecom giant in India and responsible for some of the most iconic marketing campaigns in India. Before Vodafone, he held CMO and General Manager roles at Yum! Brands (the owners of KFC, Pizza Hut & Taco Bell) in India and the UK. He was involved in the rapid growth of KFC & PH as well as the launch of Taco Bell in India!

He joined Hindustan Unilever from XLRI and worked there for almost 2 decades in several marketing & strategy roles across India and at the global headquarters at the UK

Sandeep is an engineer from IIT-Delhi and finished his PGDBM from XLRI in 1993 as the gold medallist of the batch. While IIT gave him the analytical skills, he believes XLRI was responsible for sparking the interest in Leadership & Marketing making him a life long student of consumer behavior and insight !

Sandeep is married to Anuranjita Kumar, another alumni of XLRI from the 1994 batch who is currently the Managing Director, HR for RBS International. Prior to that she spent 2 decades with Citibank. They have 2 children – daughter Avni who studies Politics & Economics at University of Pennsylvania and son Siddharth who studies at British School, Delhi.

ASSESSMENT JURY 2020

Aalok Bhan
Director and Chief Marketing Officer
Abhishek Madhavan
SVP, Growth and Marketing
Anuja Mishra
Vice President & Head of Marketing-(Personal Care & Hygiene)
Anmol Gill
Head Customer Marketing India and Neighbouring Countries
B Krishna Rao
Sr Category Head
Charu-Malhotra
VP Marketing
Devarshy Ganguly
VP - Marketing
Karthik-Yathindra
Sr. General Manager and Head – Marketing and Product Management
Kaacon-sethi
Chief Marketing Officer
Kunal Malhotra
Category Head Marketing – Mainstream Chocolates and Confectionary
Kajal Gupta
VP Marketing
Ketan Kulkarni
CMO and Head – Business Development
Nitesh Chhapru
VP - Marketing & Business Innovation
Nikhil Mittal
Vice President Marketing
Nidhi Hola
Director Integrated Marketing
Peeyush Bachlaus
AVP Marketing
Rajesh Pantina
Head of Marketing, Asia Pacific
Richa Sharma
Director - Brand Marketing
Ryan Fernandes
Head of Marketing & E‐Commerce
Sarika Naik
Chief Marketing Officer & Chairperson, Diversity, India
Shirish Agarwal
Head- Brand & Marketing Communication
Smita Murarka
VP – Marketing & Ecommerce
Sugato Banerji
Corporate Head of Marketing
Sujatha V Kumar
Head Marketing for India and South Asia
Sudhanshu Nagpal
Associate Director – Marketing (Biscuits)
Vineet Sharma
Category Director- Mountain Dew & Sting

Peeyush Bachlaus
AVP Marketing, Kansai Nerolac Paints Ltd


Mr. Peeyush Bachlausis the AVPMarketing at Kansai Nerolac Paints Ltd. Withover 20 years of multi industry work experience, he has designed and delivered successful marketing campaigns across automobiles, consumer goods and telecom.

Mr. Peeyush Bachlausjoined Kansai Nerolac in 2015 and over the years has been part of initiatives across various aspects of the business including launch of India’s first anti-viral paint, new category launches, shaping ecommerce & more recently the relaunch of brand Nerolac in its 100th year.

Prior to joining Kansai Nerolac, Mr. Bachlaushas worked with brands such as Maruti Udyog, Mahindra, Wrigley’s and Aircel.His professional achievements include a ‘Guinness World Record’, awards for large scale consumer engagement, rural marketing, experiential marketing & innovative launches.

Mr. PeeyushBachlaus has completed his Bachelor of Engineering from Birla College of Engineering, Vallabh Vidya Nagar, Gujarat. He also holds an MBA in marketing management from Faculty of Management Studies, M S University, Baroda.

Anmol Gill
Head Customer Marketing India and Neighbouring Countries, Bacardi India Pvt Ltd


Coming soon...

Ketan Kulkarni
CMO and Head – Business Development, Blue Dart


Ketan Kulkarni is CMO and Head – Business Development at Blue Dart, South Asia's premier express air and integrated transportation distribution and logistics company and part of Deutsche Post DHL group. Ketan has a rich and varied experience of over 26 years across industries as diverse as FMCG, Advertising, Alcoholic Beverages and Travel goods.

He joined Blue Dart in December 2006, and is responsible for new business development, product innovations, process improvement, customer activation and loyalty, market research, strategic intelligence, public relations, corporate communications and sustainability. He was also earlier entrusted with the role of Senior Advisor and Head - First Choice, the quality and excellence program at Blue Dart. A certified master black-belt, he is involved in leading & guiding change, organizational strategy, development and transformation.

A thoroughbred marketing professional with expertise in Sales Management and Advertising, Ketan has tremendous insights into national, regional and global market trends and evolving scenarios. Brand architecture, market research, retail management, buyer behaviour, environment scanning & customer strategy development are also his areas of core competence.

An experienced sales professional, prior to Blue Dart, he has successfully led goal oriented national sales teams. He has been involved in running sales coaching & training, incentive programs, portfolio management, trade channels & distribution set-up and strategizing & operating Key Account Management structures. As part of the national sales leadership responsibility, he has had the opportunity to travel extensively across the nation and has virtually been to every state and its interiors, enabling him to gain tremendous insight and knowledge of the Indian market-place and its consumers.

In 2008, Blue Dart’s silver anniversary year, he gave further impetus and traction to the company’s aggressive growth plans. Apart from leading various strategic initiatives, he has led the One-Retail programme in Blue Dart thereby developing a strong foothold in the retail landscape in enhancing customer value proposition. Ketan is a leader who believes that value and innovations can lead to a profitable organization especially in the fast paced ‘express’ sphere.

Ketan is in the advisory council of the CMO Asia Council and has received numerous awards across forums in the areas of Marketing, Branding and Corporate Social Responsibility. He holds the jury position at the BSE – Corporate Responsibility Awards, the SIFE Enactus Panel and the Asia HR Congress.

He was recently awarded the Responsible Business Leader of the Year 2017 by Responsible Business Awards, “Greatest Marketing Influencer” Award 2017, ‘Most Influential Marketing Leaders’ Award at the World Marketing Congress, presented the ‘Award for Retail Excellence - Retail Leadership Award’ at Asia Retail Congress, conferred as the ‘Marketing Professional of the Year’ at the 10th Indy’s awards, was recognised as one of ‘100 Most Impactful CSR Leaders - Global Listing’ at World CSR Congress. He was also awarded the CISCO Sustainability Leadership Award at the India Sustainability Leadership Summit & Awards, Best CMO of the Year – by indiasgreatest.com – The Greatest Corporate Leaders of India. He has also won the ‘Best Sustainability Leader’ by Star of the Industry Awards at the 9th Indy's Awards for Excellence in Mass Communication, Marketing Communication, Public Relations, Advertising, Corporate Social Responsibility, ‘Best CMO of the Year’ by indiasgreatest.com - The Greatest Corporate Leaders Of India and is also the recipient of the ‘Sustainability Leadership Award’ by Global Sustainability Leadership Awards 2014, an ‘Indira Super Achiever’ and winner of ‘Pride of Profession Award for Excellence in Marketing’ to name a few.

Ketan likes to keep himself updated of the recent trends in business and advanced leadership, based on which he recently completed the Asia Pacific Business Leadership Program from the Australian School of Business. Corporate Sustainability & Living Responsibility are areas that appeal to Ketan's heart. He leads by example in greening the environment, conserving energy and working with children and youth from the marginalized sections of our society in order that they and our future generations are provided a better quality of life

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Mumbai University and an MBA in Marketing from Sydenham Institute (Mumbai). He enjoys reading books on game theory, scenario planning, world history & architecture.

Kajal Gupta
VP Marketing, UTI


Kajal has been responsible for managing “UTI Swatantra”, an Investor awareness initiative by UTI MF for last 3 years. UTI Swatantra is a surrogate for marketing & building the brand identity of the brand “UTI Mutual Fund”.

Seasoned professional with 12 years of experience in consumer research, consumer-need assessment, service/product positioning, media sales, dealer (Investment/Financial Advisors - IFA) relationship management, consumer education-cum-activation marketing & creating content for amplification of core communication across media platforms (publishing, linear mass media, digital and social) and management of digital assets (website, micro-sites, native advertising, SM).

In her earlier stints she has been associated with Tam Media Research & Times Television Network.

Vineet Sharma
Category Director- Mountain Dew & Sting, PepsiCo India


Vineet Sharma is the Category Director - Mountain Dew & Sting at PepsiCo India. He has been associated with PepsiCo India for more than a decade now.

An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, Vineet brings with him a rich experience of over 17 years in marketing management, customer insights, business planning and retail. Prior to his appointment at PepsiCo India, he was associated with ICI Paints and Tata Strategic Management Group. He has lead various marketing campaigns for brand promotion, increase in sales and volumes of businesses and strategic positioning of brands and sub-brands.

Vineet started his journey at PepsiCo India from being a Senior Brand Manager for Quaker to managing brands such as 7 Up, Nimbooz, Slice and Tropicana. His expertise in marketing played a pivotal role for the brands that he has been associated with.

According to Vineet, “PepsiCo has been present in India for close to three decades and turned into one of the largest MNC for food and beverage. I am glad to be a part of the family and would strive to play an active role in positioning it as an aspirational brand”.

Anuja Mishra
Vice President & Head of Marketing-(Personal Care & Hygiene), GCPL


Coming soon...

Nidhi Hola
Director Integrated Marketing, Microsoft


Coming soon...

Samir Vora
CMO, Daily Hunt


Coming soon...

Kaacon Sethi
Chief Marketing Officer, Dainik Bhaskar Group


Kaacon Sethi is Chief Marketing Officer at Dainik Bhaskar Group responsible for Brand, Marketing & Communications.

Kaacon has close to 25 years of experience in media and entertainment - television media marketing & sales, channel management , branded content & solutions, movies & event production , television content production and media planning & buying. Earlier Kaacon has worked with companies like JWT, Grey, Sony Entertainment Television, K Sera Sera Productions, MediaSys Solutions (as an entrepreneur) and the IPG Media Group.

She is passionate about people and performance, the role of Media and Entertainment in the marketing mix and believes in leveraging the power of traditional and digital media for brand success. In addition, she champions a strong focus on customer delight and relationships.

Kaacon had also designed the Media, Entertainment and Sports Marketing course at SP Jain Institute of Marketing & Research and had taught the same as Honorary Visiting Professor. She continues to teach and speak as a way of giving back to the marketing and media community. She prefers to do her voluntary work with charitable institutions privately.

On the personal front, she is passionate about history, museums and historical sites, travel, cinema, music, art, poetry and simple cooking.

Rajesh Pantina
Head of Marketing, Asia Pacific, InMobi


Rajesh Pantina leads the marketing for InMobi across the Asia Pacific region. In his previous roles at InMobi, Rajesh has led product marketing for InMobi's Performance and Monetisation solutions across Asia Pacific and as Founders' Staff in the marketing function. Rajesh is an alumnus of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

Sarika Naik
Chief Marketing Officer & Chairperson, Diversity, India, Capgemini


Sarika is the Chief Marketing Officer and Chairperson for D&I at Capgemini Technology Services, India. She bears nearly two decades of rich and diverse industry experience, with a rare combination of global marketing, sales & corporate functions.

At Capgemini, she is responsible for enhancing the Brand amongst customers, employees and industry at large. She has been also playing an active role in shaping the organization’s diversity practices, and is committed towards building a more inclusive workplace at Capgemini. Sarika is also a Capgemini Expert in Corporate Functions, Front Line Sales, and Global Marketing.

Sarika is also appointed as the Head of the Center Head Organisation (CHO) at Capgemini in India. The CHO is the nerve-centre of the 100,000+ organisation with presence across 12 locations in India and plays a pivotal role in creating a uniform, consistent, sustainable and scalable Capgemini experience for all stakeholders - both internal and external - across all locations.

Prior to joining Capgemini, Sarika was the Global Head of Marketing for Infrastructure and Cloud Computing business and Customer Experience Head for Dell Services, India. While leading the marketing function, she has pioneered initiatives to enhance organization’s brand presence through integrated marketing programs and was part of Dell India Employee Welfare board.

Prior to Dell, she was with Wipro for over 15 years having worn many hats in roles spanning sales, process excellence, customer advocacy and marketing for Global Infrastructure Services and Wipro InfoTech. As CMO for Wipro India business & Head - Marketing for Global Infrastructure Services, she led Wipro’s brand enhancement globally through integrated marketing programs, sales enablement and client pursuit strategies, influencer relations - Analyst, Advisors and Media, demand generation and lead nurturing, Digital Marketing and Account Based Marketing and large scale Joint Partner Programs.

Sarika was also the Ombudsperson & Head of PSHC (Prevention of Sexual Harassment Committee) based on the credibility & high integrity demonstrated over the years at Wipro.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering and a Master’s degree in Marketing Management. Sarika is also a certified Six Sigma Black Belt in DMAIC, LEAN and TQSS Methodologies.

Nidhi Gulia
CMO, Hero Cycles


Coming soon...

Sudhanshu Nagpal
Associate Director – Marketing (Biscuits), Mondelez


Sudhanshu Nagpal is Associate Director – Marketing (Biscuits) at Mondelez India Foods Private Ltd. His role includes delivering the strategy and landing the overall innovation and communication agenda on the brands and delivering the P&L for this category, in India.

Sudhanshu joined Mondelez India in January 2005 as a Management Trainee and has worked across sales, brand/category management, innovation and customer marketing functions in categories like Chocolates and Biscuits. He is part of both, the Asia, Middle East & Africa (AMEA) Biscuit Leadership Team and the India BU Leadership Team.

Sudhanshu was recently featured in Impact’s 40 Under 40 List, the listing that identifies the top 40 achievers in the Indian Media, Marketing and Advertising domain who are under 40 years of age.

Sudhanshu holds a PGDM in Marketing from IIM Calcutta.

Aalok Bhan
Director and Chief Marketing Officer, Max Life Insurance


A leader with long standing expertise of over two decades in financial services and banking, Aalok Bhan leads the Marketing function at Max Life as Director and Chief Marketing Officer. In his role, Aalok oversees the company’s Product, Branding and Corporate Communication strategies towards strengthening Customer-Oriented Product Design strategies, Brand Positioning and Marketing, as well as managing all Corporate & Internal Communications.

Aalok joined Max Life in 2012 as part of the Executive Management Committee and later transitioned to establish Max One in 2013. After a brief stint as the Head of Product, Marketing and Corporate Communications, in October 2016, he assumed the responsibility of Chief Distribution Officer. Under his leadership, Aalok led the company's distribution footprint across the nation with the responsibility of managing and driving Agency and all bank partnerships, further strengthening the company’s multi-channel distribution architecture and growing its market share.

Prior to joining Max Life Insurance, Aalok was briefly with Dresdner Bank AG, India as the CEO (designate) and Managing Director, before establishing FAB Advisors in mid-2009. He also worked with ABN Amro Royal Bank of Scotland (post buy over of ABN) from 2001 to 2008 and with the Standard Chartered Bank for a decade (1991-2001). Aalok is a Post Graduate in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Sri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi.

Devarshy Ganguly
VP - Marketing, Dr.Oetker India Pvt Ltd


Devarshy has over sixteen years of experience across strategy, marketing, media and B2B with leading Indian and International F&B brands.

An alumnus of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and TAPMI, Manipal, his body of work includes managing large brand portfolios, being part of the core team of an FMCG start-up and launching some iconic global brands in India. Amongst the many brands he has managed, certain worthy mentions are M&M’s, Snickers, Galaxy/Dove, McDowell’s No. 1, Teacher’s and Del Monte.

Currently, he is Vice President with Dr. Oetker India leading the marketing team with an ambition to scale up the portfolio and drive growth. He and his team have been instrumental in launching the recent brand campaign “Iska taste mile, to sab milein” for brand FunFoods by Dr. Oetker

Devarshy is a foodie and an avid traveller who loves to explore new cultures and cuisines. He strongly believes in building businesses by nurturing brands and people.

Smita Murarka
VP – Marketing & Ecommerce, Duroflex


Smita leads the marketing and ecommerce function at duroflex- India’s leading Sleep solutions brand.

With over 17 years of rich experience in Brand building, Business Strategy, E-commerce, Product Management, she was instrumental in building brands like amante, Lifestyle, bossini and many other consumer brands. Smita has been the recipient of the Women Super Achiever Award 2019 (World Woman Leadership) and Star Youth Achiever Award (CMO Asia), a testament to her expertise and success.

She is also a Certified Personal Branding Coach, and took to the added dimension in her career, due to her passion and experience in making people highlight their true potential & present themselves in their best avatar.

Smita is an avid traveler and a foodie, with an interest to understand cultures and consumerism across the globe.

Ryan Fernandes
Head of Marketing & E‐Commerce, Pantaloons


An award winning eCommerce and Marketing professional with a career spanning 20 years in FMCG, mobile phones & retail across 3 continents with Nestle, GSK, Nokia, Microsoft & the Aditya Birla Group.

Marketing & Digital thought leader with proven successes in digital transformation, brand building, Omni-channel, digital marketing, CRM, influencer, social engagement & performance marketing. Currently leads Marketing & eCommerce at Pantaloons at ABFRL.

Nikhil Mittal
Vice President Marketing, White Hat Jr


Nikhil Mittal is a firm believer in the power of early adoption of an emerging business category, and to dominate the market during its popularity.

With that vision, he joined WhiteHat Jr as the 1st marketing employee of the company, which is now India’s second-largest ed-tech company at a revenue run rate of $150 Million in just 18 months of inception.

As an early member of the core team at WhiteHat Jr, he spearheaded the growth of the company. Under his leadership, WhiteHat Jr grew from a user base of zero to 7 million in 18 months and counting, creating a completely new category with a strong NPS>60. WhiteHat Jr emerged as a cash flow positive business, with marketing cost accounting for less than 20% of the total revenue m-o-m. This gave the business enough leverage to grow multifold without any dependence on external capital.

Nikhil started with deep product-led growth-marketing at WhiteHat Jr powered with the hardcore performance-driven approach. The goal was to make the word of mouth incredibly strong with exceptional product experience and enough triggers and opportunities to amplify virality and referrals.

Under Nikhil’s tutelage, WhiteHat Jr produced its first TV Ad and a series of endorsements by celebrities such as sportspersons Mary Kom, Virender Sehwag, Vijender Singh, film personalities like Sonu Sood, Farah Khan and many others.

With the brand’s international expansion underway, he is now actively involved in positioning the company as a truly global platform. WhiteHat Jr platform is currently available in 7 countries and expanding to over 20 more in the next 3 months.

Since teachers are the heart of WhiteHat Jr’s family, Nikhil also created a robust supply mechanism to hire highly qualified women workforce of 6000+ educators and counting to over 20000 by the end of this year.

Nikhil graduated from Goa Institute of Management and has extensively worked in the field of data and tech/product-driven growth marketing at Vodafone, Zain Telecom, Tata Docomo, Google and Ericsson across India and international (Africa, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, rest of Middle East).

Apart from his contributions in the corporate marketing field, Nikhil has volunteered for teaching and education awareness programmes for slum dwellers in Goa, India.

Abhishek Madhavan
SVP, Growth and Marketing, MPL


Coming soon...

Nitesh Chhapru
VP - Marketing & Business Innovation, Diageo India


As Chief Innovation Officer, Nitesh is currently driving inorganic revenue growth for Diageo India by leading cross-functional business teams. He is responsible for core brand relaunches and variant/line extension innovations on core brands. An important aspect of his role also includes devising new format and delivery innovations, new-to-world category and new-to-world brand innovations.

Nitesh has also led the Premium Core & Reserve portfolio from July 2015 till end of 2017 driving marketing, innovation and annual business performance on Scotch Whisky, Malts, Premium Vodka, Gin & Rum

In 2014 as Head of Innovation for Diageo India, Nitesh built the Innovation process, talent & capability program & successfully relaunched core brands like McDowell’s, Royal Challenge, Signature and Antiquity.

Nitesh joined Diageo India back in 2006 and was responsible for marketing the Johnnie Walker portfolio, after which he moved to Global Innovation based out of India leading the Innovation pipeline strategy and setting up the Innovation function in the country. In 2010, he moved to the Diageo South East Asia business in his innovation role, managing markets like Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, where he led the creation of the Ready-To-Drink Innovation pipeline and turnaround of Smirnoff ICE business. 

Prior to Diageo USL, Nitesh has worked across Strategy & Marketing roles with The Bennett & Coleman Group and Asian Paints. He completed his Master’s in Business Administration in 2003 from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. 

An innovator by disposition, his key expertise lies in simplifying business problems and delivering performance at PACE. In his spare time, Nitesh likes to play sports, explore travel and gourmet foods and work on ideas for a sustainable future.

Richa Sharma
Director - Brand Marketing , PhonePe


Coming soon...

Sujatha V Kumar
Head Marketing for India and South Asia , VISA


Overview: Sujatha has over 20 years of working experience in the field of Marketing. She has worked extensively in all key areas, such as Brand Development, Launch Strategy, Category Management, Retail Strategy and Promotions, Creating Advertising, Media, Consumer Behaviour, Client Engagement, Market Research and In-market implementation of Programs

Current Position and Responsibilities: Sujatha is the Head of Marketing for Visa for the India and South Asia region. She is responsible for driving the overall marketing strategy and execution, including consumer, retail and digital marketing initiatives for India and the emerging markets of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Maldives.

Previous Positions: Prior to joining Visa, Sujatha was leading Marketing & Strategy at Google as Head of Brand & Reputation. Sujatha started her career at Procter & Gamble and, over the years, has gathered rich experience in sales and marketing across strong consumer marketing companies such as Gillette, Nokia, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Coca-Cola.

Other Information: Sujatha is a graduate in Psychology and holds an MBA in Marketing. She is also the lead singer of a band "Mid Life Crisis” (a band comprising people from the corporate world who have a passion for music), and they have been performing in concerts for the last five years.

Sugato Banerji
Corporate Head of Marketing, Videocon D2H


Sugato Banerji is the Corporate Head of Marketing at D2H, Dish TV India Ltd, India’s first and pioneering DTH operator.

With over 32 years’ industry experience at his disposal, Sugato has a wealth of knowledge in service marketing having worked with large service brands in the past. He started his career in sales in Xerox and then spent 8 years in leading advertising agencies, JWT and Lintas, where he worked on brands like Tata Steel, ITC and HUL. Thereafter, he shifted to marketing and rose to become the head of consumer marketing in Standard Chartered Bank has successfully launched several innovative credit cards and the iconic Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon, a benchmark in event sponsorship in India. He was in the core team that launched Airtel Digital TV, which became the brand leader in DTH within 18 months of launch. Before being a part of Dish TV, as head of marketing Videocon D2H, he was associated with the Harvard case study on In Film Branding in the movie Sultan. Currently, he is leading the D2H marketing and customer experience retention teams within Dish TV.Sugato’s greatest strengths are his passion for work, creativity drive, and leadership. He thrives on challenges, particularly those that expand the company’s reach.

Sugato is an alumnus of IIT BHU and IIM Bangalore. When not at work, he can often be found as a guest lecturer in leading business schools or busy with his camera.

Karthik Yathindra
Sr. General Manager and Head – Marketing and Product Management, Jockey India


Mr. Karthik Yathindrahas over a decade’s experience inSales, Retail, Marketing and Business Management across consumer brands in the fashion and lifestyle space. In his current stint at Jockey India, he has played an instrumental role in building Jockey to be amongst the most respected and aspired brands in the country. In addition to creating some memorable marketing campaigns, he is credited for having successfully steered the brand to enter new product categories and catering to new consumer segments in India. In his words “Most of my day is spent working closely with teams, nurturing functions to make Jockey in India future-ready.”

He started his career with Titan Company Limited in the Watches and Accessories Division. During his stint at Titan which lasted over six years, Karthik took on various roles including Sales and Distribution, Retail Operations, Product Management and Marketing across brands like Titan, Fastrack, Sonata and Zoop.

Karthik is a gold medalist from T. A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal and holds a bachelor’s degree in Academic Law. In his free time, he enjoys travel and indulging in adventure sport.

Prachi Mohapatra
CMO, FBB


Coming soon...

Shirish Agarwal
Head- Brand & Marketing Communication, Panasonic India


Shirish Agarwalis the Head - Marketing Communications and Brand at Panasonic India, overlooking operations across the country.He is responsible for devising marketing strategy for new and existing products/services and driving sustainable and profitable growth for the company.

With over 16yearsof industry experience, he specializes in brand media andcommunication strategy, digital advertisement optimization, consumer insights, trade and channel marketing with a strong business & ROI focus.Embracing the core values of integrity, innovation, and growth, Shirish thrives on challenges.

At Panasonic, Shirish is credited with many successful campaigns from the launch of Connected Living platform – Miraie, to numerous consumer durable campaigns. Some noteworthy campaigns include - #BakeMeHappy for Microwaves; #IntelligentHAI for the new range of AI enabled refrigerators; #KapdoKiImmunity for the Washing Machine range.

Shirish is an alumnus of Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU) Graduate School of Business, Seoul, South Koreaand holds a MBA degree in Management & Marketing. In his free time, Shirish likes to travel and explore new places andenjoys adventure sports.

Kunal Malhotra
Category Head Marketing – Mainstream Chocolates and Confectionary, Nestle South Asia Region


An Experienced Marketing and communication Professional with over 19 years’ experience in the Food and Beverage industry of leading brands and categories like Real Activ Juices, Maaza, Kinley, NESCAFE, Munch, POLO, and Milkybar. Also worked on the Nestle business in Africa as well as for the Foods category in Zone AOA as a part of the international assignment with Nestle Headquarters in Switzerland.

An avid runner, I have participated in Half Marathons in India and Switzerland. Love Cricket and follow Manchester United.

Charu Malhotra
VP Marketing, Hindware


Charu works at Brilloca Ltd, a leading building products company as Head of Marketing & Vice President. She oversees the entire marketing gamut for the iconic bathware brand HINDWARE along with steering the new age super-premium ALCHYMI and the luxury brand QUEO.

A dynamic Marketing professional with over 20 years of managing marketing and sales functions across varied sectors like FMCG, Banking, and Building material industry, Charu played a pivotal role in growing brand equity and leading all aspects of Brand Strategy at her last assignment at Somany Ceramics.

Suman Varma
CMO, Hamdard Laboratories


26+years of experience in partnering brands and businesses in India , with the WPP group – JWT , Rediffusion Y&R..

I have worked across categories on leading brands both multinational and local : ITC –tobacco & personal care, Surya Nepal, Projects for BAT Srilanka , GSK , Hamdard , Tata Steel Emami , Big 92.7 FM, Zee TV , Circuit work for Pepsi,Airtel& USL , Dr Reddy( Mynmar project ) , Jagatjit Industries, GPI, Tea Board of India, Coffee & Spice Board of India, Amway, IFFCO, Resurgent Rajasthan Summit , Unicef ,Videocon and all local jewellery brands of Bengal.

I am involved in mentoring programmes and am on the Advisory Board for NGO’s.& on the Board of a Retail Jewellery brand

B Krishna Rao
Sr Category Head, Parle Products


A postgraduate in Management from North Maharashtra University and currently based in Mumbai, Krishnarao Buddha has over 25 years of work experience in the FMCG sector across several leading companies such as Parle Products, Uncle Chipps, Maxwell Apparels and Excelcia Foods. Over the years, Krishnarao has also grown to become one of the key opinion leaders within the industry on several aspects such as business strategy, branding, marketing, advertising, distribution, manufacturing and sales to name a few.

In his current role as Senior Category Head, Krishnarao is responsible for Parle’s entire Snacks, Confectionery, Cakes and Rusk portfolio. He works closely across teams within the company to drive need gap identification and new product launches, pricing and profitability, advertising and media management, building brand equity and imagery and budget management. Over a period, he has developed a passion for turning round ailing brands.

In the 19 years that Krishnarao has spent at Parle, some of his landmark achievements includes the launch Parle’s Kachha Mango Bite to be the leading candy brand in the category, and launch of Magix cream biscuits to be a market leader in a span of three years of its introduction. Besides, he is the man behind the entry of Parle into the snacking category with a portfolio comprising brands of Parle’s Wafers, Chatkeens, FullToss and Mexitos. He has scaled newer heights in the respective categories. He is driving the rusk and cakes portfolio to contribute significantly to the Parle portfolio.

A strong believer in work-life balance, Krishnarao enjoys playing word games, reading, watching Bollywood movies and listening to retro music during leisure.

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