MAM
IBD strengthens creative team with 2 appointments
MUMBAI: Percept/H Company’s total communication solutions agency, Integrated Brand Development (IBD) India, has appointed Kartikeya Dixit and Soumya Nagabhushan as associate creative directors.
Dixit and Nagabhushan will be based out of IBD’s Gurgaon office.
The mandate for them would be to strengthen the creative team. They will work under Jai Singh and Akash Sharma.
IBD India Sr. VP Srikant Rath said, “With both of them joining the growing team, IBD India will fortify its creative output and you can be assured of some more out-of-the box solutions for our clients.”
Dixit brings in over seven years of experience in both ATL and BTL spaces. Prior to this he worked in Ogilvy, Rediffusion Y&R and Dentsu. He has worked on brands like LG (Home Appliance & Home Entertainment, FPDs), Sprite, Honda, Wild Stone Park Avenue and Religare.
On his new role Dexit said, “I am really excited to join IBD India and work on internationally recognised brands like Panasonic and a host of others. I am looking forward to doing work that is relevant to my target audiences and win recognition of award juries as well. We are an ambitious bunch here hungry to do good work.”
Nagabhushan has to his credit over six years of advertising experience. He has worked on brands Like LG, Nestle, Frito Lay’s, Maruti Suzuki, Dabur, Honda and Havell’s. “It’s going to be both an interesting and challenging time in IBD. IBD is an exciting place with an enthusiastic bunch of people believing in doing great creative work. What’s more, the client mix offers you great opportunity to do good work,” he added.
IBD has been in the news lately for picking up businesses like Pure Home+ Living, Iinstinct Deodorants, Shlipa Cosmetics, Saks Salons and Radius Infratel.
Brands
Zscaler, Airtel launch India AI Cyber Research Centre
New hub to boost cyber resilience and trusted AI use
NEW DELHI: As India’s digital engine roars ahead, so do the risks riding shotgun. In response, Zscaler, Inc. and Bharti Airtel have joined hands to launch the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a national initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s cyber defences and accelerating responsible AI adoption.
The centre is designed as a multi stakeholder platform that brings together industry, government and academia. Its mission is clear: protect critical sectors such as telecom, banking and energy, shield everyday digital users, and future proof India’s fast expanding online ecosystem.
India has long been a major innovation hub for Zscaler, with a substantial portion of its cyber research talent based here. With this new centre, that footprint evolves into a national collaboration engine. The idea is simple but ambitious, build in India, for India, and help power the country’s journey towards a secure and digitally self reliant future.
The timing is telling. India is building digital systems at population scale, not just enterprise scale. That scale has widened the attack surface dramatically. At the same time, cyber criminals and nation state actors are deploying AI to scan, probe and exploit vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, reports millions of infiltration attempts every month. These include espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
In such an environment, perimeter based security models are struggling to keep pace. The new centre aims to push a shift towards secure by design systems and Zero Trust architecture.
Its strategy rests on four pillars: protect through real time intelligence, remediate by working directly with government agencies, facilitate adoption of AI driven security and Zero Trust frameworks, and build a stronger cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global threat intelligence with local network visibility. Zscaler will deploy a dedicated India focused research team and draw insights from its Zero Trust Exchange platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions worldwide. Airtel, meanwhile, will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, helping detect suspicious activity faster and coordinate response across the ecosystem.
Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal, said the partnership extends Airtel’s commitment to safeguarding customers and the nation’s digital fabric. He added that the collaboration would address challenges unique to the Indian market and encourage secure and confident digital engagement.
Zscaler chief executive, chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry, said India’s digital ambition cannot be secured with legacy firewalls and VPNs. He noted that a modern Zero Trust architecture is essential for a hyper connected world and that the new centre would harness the scale of Zscaler’s global security cloud while empowering a new generation of Indian cyber defenders.
Additional members from critical public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative in the coming months, expanding its scope and deepening collaboration.
In a world where threats travel at machine speed, India’s answer is to think faster, collaborate wider and build smarter.
