Brand Makers – Page 243

Kingshuk Mitra moves on from Essence to join Star Sports

At Essence, Mitra’s role entailed reporting into the Global COO, ensuring the ongoing success and profitability of the agency by delivering consistent work quality to their clients across APAC, and making sure their business strategy translates into smart day-to-day operational decisions.

At Star Sports, Kingshuk Mitra would be reporting to Ajit Varghese, Disney Star’s Head of Network Advertising Sales. Mitra’s appointment comes after Ambarish Bandyopadhyay’s departure from the company in March during the IPL season.

ACI Infotech appoints Tushar Sharma as chief marketing officer

Tushar Sharma is armed with an experience of 15 years and started his career at Woodstock Futures as the co-founder.

Previously, Tushar Sharma worked at Intel Corporation.

GroupM’s Sparsh Ganguli joins Astus Group as India head

He will be based out of Mumbai and will report to the founding members, Frances Dickens and Paul Jackson.

Sparsh Ganguli has over 25 years of experience and has worked across Star, Sony and BAG Films.

Droom appoints Vishwajeet Singh Rana as head of marketing

Vishwajeet Singh Rana has also worked with companies like Grafik International, Giorgio Armani, McCann Worldgroup, Max New York Life, and HDFC Life.

Vishwajeet Singh Rana’s last full-time stint was with TBWA\Media Arts Lab.

Disney+Hotstar appoints Neha Sharma Katyal as director of agency sales

Neha Sharma Katyal, who has 15 years of experience, was previously employed with Spotify as director of sales.

Mondelez-owned Oreo uses Farhan Akhtar and Artificial Intelligence in new campaign

OREO has introduced special edition packs containing cookies embossed with the letters of the English alphabet. Each pack also comes with a QR code which, once scanned, will redirect the consumer to a microsite where users can share the awkward situation they are in.

The campaign, conceptualised by Leo Burnett India leverages Generative Artificial Intelligence to generate playful answers which then goes to a voice cloning AI engine which plays back the answer in Farhan Akhtar’s voice.

Google lays off director of news Madhav Chinnappa

During his period at BBC, he oversaw the management and development of key broadcast partner relationships, led responsibility on all of BBC News key agency contracts and took responsibility on all commercial revenues into BBC News.

Madhav Chinnappa has been associated with the tech giant for 13 years.

Fractal Ink’s Priyanka Agrawal joins Punt Partners as co-founder

Priyanka Agrawal has been with Fractal Ink since its inception in 2010, and the firm was acquired by the Dentsu group in 2016. After leaving Dentsu, Priyanka started an innovation consulting practice called Forward Slash, focusing on digital transformation for Fortune 500 companies in the US.

Priyanka Agrawal is coming onboard to build a new consulting practice that marries innovation, design and technology and will focus on the North America market.

Havas Media appoints Ramsai Panchapakesan as managing partner- investments

With a career spanning over two decades, Ramsai Panchapakesan served as the senior vice president & national head – media buying at Zenith Media. He played a pivotal role in driving the integrated media business operations. He had also held the position of agency trading head at GroupM m/SIX previously. (L to R: Ramsai Panchapakesan, managing partner- Investments, Havas Media India; Mohit Joshi, chief executive officer, Havas Media Network India; and R Venkatsubramanian, president - investments, Havas Media India, and managing director of Havas Play)

Based out of Gurugram, he will oversee integrated buying in the North and East markets, along with assuming additional responsibilities for trading.

CXO Moves: Exec movements at Dentsu, Wavemaker, GroupM and more

Get the full picture on people and their moves on the corporate jungle gym in CXO Moves. (From left to right: Aalap Desai, Sparsh Ganguli, Ramsai Panchapakesan and Varun Gupta)

Executive moves in the world of brands and agencies.