MAM
GroupM appoints David Grabert as global corpcomm director
MUMBAI: GroupM has named David Grabert as global director of corporate communications.
In this role, he will lead strategic external and internal communications to support GroupM’s worldwide leadership in media investment, data and technology on behalf of the company’s agencies and clients.
The role underscores GroupM’s commitment to continuously moving the business forward on behalf of clients by expressing points of view on the most critical industry issues including buying automation, viewability, accountability, transparency, attribution and more.
Grabert joins GroupM from Clear Channel Outdoor, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, Inc., where he led corporate communications for the company’s Americas division. He is a 15-year media industry veteran with prior senior communications and marketing experience at Cox Communications, Comcast and Canoe Ventures. In his cable telecommunications career, he helped launch multiple advanced television, telephony and advertising solutions. With expertise in technology, data, privacy, anti-piracy and other issues, Grabert will be a key player in driving GroupM’s worldwide thought leadership.
Based in New York, Grabert will report to GroupM global head of marketing, communications and business development Elizabeth McCune.
“Having David in this important role shows GroupM’s commitment to being a vocal industry leader,” said McCune.
MAM
Smytten appoints Shishir Varma as CEO of Pulseai Research
Rebranded AI platform scales with 150 plus clients and 30 million users.
MUMBAI: In a world obsessed with what consumers say, Smytten is betting on what they actually do. The company has appointed Shishir Varma as chief executive officer of Pulseai Research, signalling a sharper push into AI-led, behaviour-driven consumer insights. The move comes as Smytten rebrands its insights vertical from Smytten PulseAI to Pulseai Research, marking a shift away from traditional, project-based research towards a more continuous, intelligence-led model.
Varma brings over 30 years of global experience across APAC markets, including India, China and Japan. Most recently managing director, Insights at Kantar Japan, he has built and scaled consumer insight businesses across geographies, including playing a key role in establishing Millward Brown in India. His mandate now: turn Pulseai into a category-defining platform in a space still dominated by surveys and static reports.
The pitch is straightforward but ambitious. Instead of relying on claimed responses, Pulseai Research taps into observed behaviour leveraging Smytten’s ecosystem of 30 million users built over a decade of product discovery, trials and purchases. The idea is to close the long-standing gap between what consumers claim and how they actually behave.
The numbers suggest early traction. In under 18 months, the platform has onboarded over 150 enterprise clients across sectors, pointing to growing demand for faster, more reliable alternatives to legacy research models.
Under the hood, the platform blends behavioural data with AI and large language model-led analysis to deliver real-time sentiment tracking, scalable qualitative insights, faster quantitative studies and always-on brand intelligence. In practical terms, that means compressing research timelines from weeks to days without sacrificing depth.
The ambition extends beyond FMCG. Pulseai Research is positioning itself as a cross-category intelligence layer, spanning auto, education, gadgets and emerging consumer segments anywhere behaviour-rich data can sharpen decision-making.
For Smytten, the leadership hire is less about optics and more about direction. With Varma at the helm, the company is leaning into a simple but powerful premise: in the age of AI, insight isn’t just about asking better questions, it’s about watching more closely.
