Puma India appoints Karthik Balagopalan as managing director

Karthik Balagopalan will start in his new role on August 1, 2023. Abhishek Ganguly will remain at Puma until the end of August to ensure a smooth transition.

Karthik Balagopalan replaces Abhishek Ganguly, who worked for Puma’s Indian business for 17 years and has been the managing director of Puma India since 2014.

Swiggy’s VP of marketing Ashish Lingamneni quits; Aparna Giridhar replaces him

Ashish Lingamneni comes with an experience of 15 years and started his career at Deloitte Consulting as business technology analyst. From there, he moved to Colgate Palmolive and he joined Johnson & Johnson (J&J) as a management trainee. He held various roles at J&J, and his last role was customer marketing manager. Before joining Swiggy, he was with Ola’s marketing team. (Image source: LinkedIn)

Ashish Lingamneni plans to explore the world of AI and technology in his next stint. Recently, Saurabh Nath, Swiggy’s head of brand marketing also quit.

Shemaroo Entertainment ropes in Anuja Trivedi as chief marketing officer

Anuja Trivedi brings over 15 years of rich experience in strategy and media and entertainment industry, having held senior leadership roles in reputed organizations such as Disney Star, World Gold Council, McKinsey & Company, Morgan Stanley and PwC.

In her new role, Anuja Trivedi will lead the company’s overall marketing strategy and will be responsible for driving business growth, leading strategic initiatives and strengthening consumer engagement.

Mondelez International makes Deepak Iyer as EVP and president, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa

Since 2016, Deepak Iyer has successfully led the company’s India business driving sustained double-digit revenue growth, significantly expanded profit margins, strong cash flow generation and the adoption of advanced technologies and use of consumer data.

Deepak Iyer replaces Maurizio Brusadelli, who will leave the company in June to pursue another leadership opportunity.

Lowe Lintas promotes Prateek Bhardwaj to chief creative officer and head of creative, India

Prateek Bhardwaj brings over 24 years of industry experience, having won numerous prestigious accolades for his work, including the Grand Prix at Cannes Lions and Jay Chiat Awards, and the coveted Black Pencil at D&AD. He has also been a creative entrepreneur who founded and ran Eleven Brandworks out of Mumbai and Gurgaon.

Amongst other changes, Sagar Kapoor takes charge as chief creative officer, Global Brands, and will also oversee the Mumbai creative operations of the agency.

Infomo appoints Himanka Das as country director, elevates Rohit Verma to global chief of strategy

Himanka Das began his career at Madison World, building his career working at Initiative, Lintas Media Group, FCB Ulka of IPG and Starcom of Publicis Media. Rohit Verma is a 25-year pioneer in the Indian mobile advertising industry. In 2015, he was co-founder and CEO of TorcAI (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infomo), a global data science company and provider of audience infrastructure, programmatic and in-housing solutions. (From left to right: Himanka Das and Rohit Verma)

Previously, Himanka Das held leadership roles at Dentsu International India, and Rohit Verma served as the global vice president and business head for telecom commerce at mobile advertising company Vserv.

Nykaa appoints senior leaders across marketing, tech, business and legal

The Indian government aspires for the country's space sector to account for 9 percent of the global industry by 2030.

In the marketing and customer growth segment, the company has hired Sudhansh Kumar, who will lead performance marketing while Priya Bellubbi would lead customer lifecycle management. Suchita Salwan, co-founder and CEO, LBB (acquired by Nykaa) will lead the content division.