MAM
Industry remembers Shunu Sen
NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: An irreparable loss was the common refrain among marketing and media professionals today to the passing away of industry doyen Shunu Sen.
Said Suhel Seth, chief executive of Equus Red Cell, a Delhi-based ad firm, “Shunu was such a superb personality that it is difficult to envisage a future without him, without his wisecracks and, of course, without his penetrative understanding of the market and its mechanics.”
The flamboyant Seth, who has also tried his hand at TV when he hosted `Aap Jo Kahen Haan To Haan.’ on Zee TV, added, “I always looked forward to meet Shunu because every meeting was an education in itself.”
And Seth should know because he has worked closely with Shunu in recent years. Sen was also the non-executive chairman of Equus Red Cell. “There are many instances, including our board meetings, when he has guided us with his vast experience which will be brutally missed.”
Another person who had worked quite closely with Sen on various accounts is Subrato Chakraborty, the Delhi head of RMG David, an advertising firm that is managed in India by O&M.
“Sen will be missed because of the incisive logic which he used to bring into play. His logic to any situation could not be ignored. You may agree or disagree with him, but you just could not overlook the power of his logic and reasoning,” Chakraborty opined, adding that he had worked with Sen on at least three accounts.
Moreover, according to Chakraborty, Sen always was firmly rooted into reality which surfaced in seminars, etc. “In seminars there are times when speakers do go overboard, but if Sen was there, then he would always bring them back to reality by his prudence,” he added.
Though some did find Sen arrogant, but his brilliance always overshadowed his other idiosyncrasies. “When you get through the (working) style to see the content, you will always say that Sen was brilliant,” Chakraborty gushed.
Former vice-president of TBWA Anthem, Viren Razdan, who collaborated with Sen on the Reebok account, also thinks that Sen’s experience in marketing will be sorely missed. “More so because it was not confined to a sector, but cut across all sectors.”
Sony Entertainment Television senior V-P – sales Abraham Thomas, who had the good fortune to interact with Shunu very early in his career, had this to say about the man. “His ability to simplify the most complex of scenarios into a very basic theoretical framework, was simply amazing.”
Recounting an encounter with the great man at the start of his career (which was in retailing), Abraham said Shunu had once walked into a supermarket he was managing at the time and designed a very succesful in-store promotion for the 1 kg pack of Surf detergent based on three minutes of questioning. The first question was what was the fastest moving Levers’ product in the store. The answer: Surf 1 kg pack. Shunu’s next question: what was the fastest moving non-branded item? Abraham told Shunu it was sugar. There and then he worked out a promotion wherein 1 kg Surf buyers also got a packet of sugar with their purchase. And such was Shunnu’s hands on approach that he returned after two weeks to check for himself how the promo was doing, Abraham said.
CII president Ashok Soota had this to say about the marketing guru par excellence: “Besides being a legend in the field of marketing in India, Mr Sen was one of India’s ablest marketing professionals, Mr. Sen was a very warm person, a man of high values, very accessible and sensitive to the needs of his associates. He was a visionary who
introduced many innovative ideas in the Indian market place and was instrumental in highlighting the importance and essence of branding in the country.”
“Mr Sen was also the chairman of the CII marketing committee. His guidance and contribution to CII had been immense and invaluable . Under his able leadership, CII saw two very successful marketing summits. He also undertook the training of CII staff in marketing strategies,” adds Soota, while stating that “Sen’s demise was an irreparable loss to CII. Last but not the least, Mr Sen was a very courageous person, who never treated his disability (in his later years Shunu was confined to a wheelchair) as a handicap and served as a role model for many others.”
Digital
Eight-year-old coder steals the show at India AI Impact Summit 2026
Ranvir Sachdeva meets Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman, links ancient philosophy to modern AI
DELHI: Amid a sea of global tech chiefs and policy heavyweights, the loudest buzz at Bharat Mandapam this week came from a boy barely tall enough to see over the lectern.
Ranvir Sachdeva, eight, became the youngest keynote speaker at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, elbowing his way into a line-up dominated by chief executives, founders and ministers. Calm, bespectacled and fiercely articulate, he declared himself a technologist — and spoke like one.
“I’m here as the youngest keynote speaker at the India AI Impact Summit. I’m talking about how I’m linking ancient Indian philosophies to modern-day technologies. I’m also covering the different approaches which the rest of the nations are building AI,” he told news agency ANI.
He added: “I’m talking about how India is building AI with. I’m sharing my own use case of an Indian AI model just released and how I’m contributing to India’s GDP and driving AI literacy with it.”
The summit, held from February 16 to 21 in New Delhi, has drawn global names. Ranvir met Google chief executive Sundar Pichai and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman on the sidelines, sharing photographs of the encounters. He has previously met Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff and Doreen Bogdan-Martin, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.
In 2024, he met António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general.
His most high-profile brush with corporate royalty came earlier. In 2023, during the opening of Apple’s Delhi store, Ranvir demonstrated his Swift coding skills to Apple chief executive Tim Cook in a one-on-one session. Cook later posted: “What an incredible reception, Delhi, thank you! We’re delighted to welcome our customers to our newest store—Apple Saket!”
What an incredible reception, Delhi, thank you! We’re delighted to welcome our customers to our newest store—Apple Saket! pic.twitter.com/5Jmi79ixzl— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 20, 2023
Ranvir replied publicly: “Thank you so much, @tim_cook! It was great meeting you today and showcasing my Apple Swift coding skills! You are an inspiration and I so want to meet you at #WWDC2023!”
Thank you so much, Tim! You are an inspiration and I so want to meet you at #WWDC2023 ! 🙂 https://t.co/BVthznLjD8— Ranvir Singh Sachdeva (@ranvirsachdeva) April 20, 2023
The invitation followed. Cook extended a personal call for Ranvir to attend the Worldwide Developers Conference 2023 at Apple Park in Cupertino.
This is not Ranvir’s first turn on the global stage. In 2025, aged seven, he addressed the United Nations’ AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva as its youngest keynote speaker. He spoke for 20 minutes on “Agents of Change: A 7-Year-Old’s Lens on Generation AI for Good”, in front of more than 10,000 attendees from over 180 countries and 53 UN partner organisations.
He shared the broader stage with Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel laureate and Turing Award winner, alongside senior figures from Amazon, Meta and Salesforce. According to a LinkedIn post by the Ardee School, Ranvir argued that “Generation AI are the true changemakers”, highlighting healthcare breakthroughs from bionic solutions and exoskeletons to assistive devices for ALS patients. He called for the democratisation of such tools to bridge the digital divide.
The precocity runs deep. At six, he became the world’s youngest TEDx speaker, speaking on technology and innovation. At five, he won a gold medal as a “Super Presenter” in the 2022 Global Reading Challenge. Media reports say that in 2021 he built a prototype rocket aimed at supporting NASA’s Mars exploration, earning recognition from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
In 2023, he became the youngest recipient of a robotics and AI certification from IIT Delhi after a summer workshop at the I-HUB Foundation for Robotics.
He began coding at three.
At an event otherwise obsessed with trillion-dollar valuations, sovereign AI stacks and regulatory guardrails, it was a small voice that cut through. Linking Sanskrit thought to silicon chips, GDP to generative models, Ranvir Sachdeva did more than make history. He made the grown-ups listen.
#WATCH | Delhi: At #IndiaAIImpactSummit2026, Ranvir Sachdeva, Child Prodigy, Technologist, Global Author says, "I'm here as the youngest keynote speaker at the India AI Impact Summit. I'm talking about how I'm linking ancient Indian philosophies to modern-day technologies. I'm… pic.twitter.com/e3OGgtxyDK— ANI (@ANI) February 19, 2026
