MAM
Mindshare elevates R Gowthaman and Sudipto Roy
MUMBAI: In a move to strengthen its hold in market and understanding the ever-changing, technology- driven time, Mindshare has appointed R Gowthaman as chief operating officer and Sudipto Roy as regional chief client officer for Asia Pacific.
Gowthaman will take on the role of COO Asia Pacific after spending a year as chief client officer, APAC and CEO south and south-east Asia. During this time, he was responsible for Mindshare’s key clients across the region and expanding the agency’s services, including the launch of an emerging market activation unit across ASEAN in partnership with Geometry Global.
In his new role as COO, Gowthaman will focus on continued development and delivery of Mindshare’s services to marketers across the marketing value chain – from emerging consumer activation at one end to big data management on the other, and a more effective business model for working with clients.
Gowthaman said, “I am extremely delighted to take on this role. I am especially looking forward to designing and rolling out new work streams that provide Mindshare’s clients with great new opportunities and accelerate sustainable growth of our business. Despite our scale and size, we are increasingly behaving more and more like a start-up – provocative, hungry, adaptive, full of energy all underpinned by a promise to be the agency of the future.”
Roy takes over from Gowthaman as chief client officer Asia Pacific following a two-and-a-half-year stint as managing partner of Client Leadership and Partnerships. During this time, his primary responsibility was to run some of Mindshare’s key accounts including Unilever, Kimberly Clark, Lenovo and others.
In his role as CCO, Roy will focus on growing Mindshare’s relationship with its key clients across Asia Pacific, by creating faster, more agile and adaptive marketing services for them. Roy will also spearhead creation of a stronger open source collaboration model around Mindshare’s key clients, with relevant partners from WPP as well as other independent companies. Roy will report to Gowthaman in this role.
Mindshare is forging a number of partnership programmes with ‘hot’ companies coming up in emerging economies, in analytics, media technology, e-commerce, B2B, social media, mobile and more, to complement the current global partnerships already in place with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo and many others. Roy’s new role focuses on leveraging some of these partnerships to help its clients’ brands be more adaptive to near real time consumer response, and continuously improve the way they use various media platforms to grow their brands.
Commenting on his appointment, Roy said, “I am passionate about our clients’ businesses and how we think about them, so this move is exciting as it enables me to focus on what I really love. I believe we have a great opportunity to drive cutting-edge thinking for Mindshare and our clients, and fundamentally re-imagine how we think about media services while continually raising the standards for how media agencies can drive ROI. I really look forward to this part of the journey.”
Mindshare chairman & CEO for APAC and growth market Ashutosh Srivastava said, “We are privileged to have highly talented people like Gowthaman and Roy stepping into these roles. Over the years, they have developed trusted relationships with our clients, by focusing on what they value most. These roles are incredibly crucial for us at this stage and will help Mindshare continue to lead the industry thinking, and shape its development and growth at an exciting time, where understanding of media, technology and effective data usage are becoming more and more central to brand success.”
Both Roy and Gowthaman’s roles are effective immediately and will be based in Singapore.
Brands
Hiili names Sanjay Hemady as country manager India
Media veteran to drive digital decarbonisation push
MUMBAI: Climate tech firm Hiili has announced its entry into India, appointing industry veteran Sanjay Hemady as India country manager to steer its growth in one of the world’s fastest-expanding digital markets.
Hemady, a familiar name across India’s media and consulting circles, will lead Hiili’s India operations from Mumbai. His mandate is clear: help Indian companies measure, manage and reduce the carbon emissions generated by their digital services.
Hiili offers a scientifically validated platform, certified by the UC3M-Santander Big Data Institute, that enables businesses to improve the efficiency of their digital infrastructure while cutting emissions. As organisations race to meet ESG targets, the company positions itself as a practical bridge between climate pledges and measurable action.
“I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as country manager, India at Hiili,” Hemady said in a LinkedIn post, adding that the company aims to move beyond broad sustainability promises towards precise, science-based decarbonisation.
Hemady brings more than three decades of experience spanning print, television, radio and digital media. He has previously served as chief executive officer at HIT 95 FM, assistant general manager at CNBC TV18, and held leadership roles at MTV India and The Indian Express, among others. Most recently, he worked as an independent business consultant advising firms across media and technology.
With India’s digital economy expanding at pace, the environmental cost of data, streaming and online services is climbing quietly in the background. Hiili’s bet is that carbon efficiency will soon sit alongside cost efficiency in boardroom conversations.
For Hemady, the move marks a shift from selling airtime and ad inventory to championing climate accountability. If successful, Hiili’s India play could make digital growth not just faster, but cleaner too.
