Samir Shanbhag steps up as executive director at Saatchi & Saatchi India

MUMBAI: Saatchi & Saatchi India has strengthened its senior leadership bench with the elevation of Samir Shanbhag as executive director, effective January 2026. The move caps a steady rise at the agency, where Shanbhag has spent the last two-and-a-half years shaping business, clients and culture.

Shanbhag was most recently executive vice-president at Saatchi & Saatchi India, a role he held from August 2023 to December 2025. In his new position, he will play a wider leadership role across client partnerships, strategic direction and agency operations from Mumbai.

With a career spanning close to three decades, Shanbhag brings deep experience across markets and categories. Before joining Saatchi & Saatchi India, he was a founding leader at Rain Creative in Dubai, where he helped build the agency into a respected independent creative outfit. He spent nearly a decade there as director, overseeing operations, business development, profitability and strategic output, while also championing planning and integrated thinking in a young agency set-up.

Earlier, Shanbhag was business director at DDB Dubai, where he led the agency’s largest and most profitable business group. His portfolio included marquee brands such as PepsiCo, Emirates, Henkel and Abu Dhabi Media. In his final full year at DDB Dubai, the unit delivered annual revenues of $4 million, including 35 per cent year-on-year growth driven largely by organic expansion.

His career began in Mumbai in the mid-1990s, with stints at Ogilvy and Contract Advertising. At Contract, he was part of the founding team that built iContract Mumbai into one of India’s leading direct and digital marketing agencies within four years. Notably, he was also part of the team that won India’s first Gold Lion for Direct Marketing at Cannes in 2002 for the ICICI Children’s Growth Bond campaign.

A post-graduate in banking and finance from the University of Mumbai, Shanbhag entered advertising in 1995 and never looked back. Over the years, he has worked across categories ranging from snacks, beverages and dairy to banking, insurance, travel and logistics, combining strategic rigour with creative ambition.

Outside work, he is an avid reader, traveller, food explorer and cricket watcher, interests that mirror the curiosity and range he brings to his professional life.

With Shanbhag’s elevation, Saatchi & Saatchi India signals its intent to double down on seasoned leadership at a time when clients are demanding sharper thinking, deeper partnerships and business-led creativity. For Shanbhag, it is a homecoming of sorts, and for the agency, a clear bet on experience that knows how to turn ideas into impact, fast.