Brands
Sameer Wanchoo zips into VIP as chief marketing officer
MUMBAI: Earlier this month, Sameer Wanchoo packed his bags—and unpacked a bigger mandate. The seasoned marketer joined VIP Industries as chief marketing officer, taking over the brand cockpit of India’s luggage major from early December.
Wanchoo brings with him a long-haul career in consumer goods, honed across mass, premium and everything in between. Most recently, he spent over seven years at Eureka Forbes, where as CMO he helped sharpen growth engines across categories, channels and consumer cohorts.
Before that, he clocked stints at CavinKare—twice. First as VP marketing, overseeing personal care, foods and beverages, and earlier as GM marketing for hair care, where brands such as Chik, Nyle, Meera and Karthika kept their shine in a brutally competitive aisle. In between came a global toy turn at Mattel as category manager for infant and pre-school, and a retail baptism at Big Bazaar’s Food Bazaar in the west zone.
His early years read like a marketing boot camp: product management at Dabur (via Balsara Home Products), sales at ESPN Star Sports, and media planning at Starcom—before digital became dinner-table conversation.
At VIP, Wanchoo will be expected to do more than polish logos. The brief spans brand, product, digital, research, media and P&L—no small suitcase. With travel back on the boil and consumers trading up, the timing is propitious, the competition unforgiving.
From soap to suitcases, vacuums to voyages, Wanchoo has sold it all. Now he must make VIP travel faster, lighter and louder. No baggage allowed.
Brands
Zepto names Saurabh Kabra vice president for non-trade advertising
Former blinkit and ITC executive to drive Zepto’s ad-led growth
BENGALURU: Zepto has elevated Saurabh Kabra to vice president—non-trade advertising, partnerships and catalogue, underscoring the quick-commerce firm’s push to deepen high-margin revenue streams beyond deliveries.
Based in Bengaluru, Kabra will lead the strategic expansion of Zepto’s advertising and partnerships ecosystem. He was previously senior director and head of the non-trade advertising business, where he played a central role in building the company’s ad-led monetisation playbook.
Since joining Zepto, Kabra has worked closely with the chief executive’s office on strategic initiatives, contributing to the company’s rapid scale-up in India’s intensely competitive quick-commerce market. His elevation comes as platforms increasingly court brand advertising to steady margins and diversify revenue.
Before Zepto, Kabra held senior growth roles at Blinkit, serving as associate director of growth and city CEO for Hyderabad, where he led regional expansion and operational scaling.
Earlier in his career, he spent several years at ITC Limited, managing brands such as Classmate and Paperkraft and overseeing sales operations in the personal care business. He is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta.
Industry executives view the appointment as a clear signal that Zepto is sharpening its focus on advertising, partnerships and catalogue-led monetisation: areas increasingly discussed by investors as critical to improving unit economics in quick commerce.
