Atique Kazi bids farewell to WPP Media after 13 years

MUMBAI: After more than a decade of shaping India’s digital advertising playbook, Atique Kazi has stepped away from WPP Media, bringing down the curtain on a 13 year leadership journey across data, performance, commerce and emerging tech.

Kazi’s exit marks the end of an era spent building some of the most influential digital and commerce capabilities within the WPP ecosystem, at a time when India emerged as one of the fastest transforming advertising markets globally.

Reflecting on his journey, Kazi called it a “very special chapter”, crediting the people, culture and timing that defined his run. He spoke of growing through multiple leadership roles across performance, programmatic, data and commerce, while contributing to what he described as truly transformative industry work.

At WPP Media and GroupM, Kazi most recently served as president for e-commerce, performance and digital products in India, a role he held from 2021. Before that, he spent eight years at Xaxis, including stints as managing director in India and vice president for new business in Singapore, helping scale programmatic offerings across markets.

Among the standout platforms built under his leadership were Xaxis India’s programmatic solutions, Turbine which grew into India’s largest scaled DMP, Finecast India’s connected TV advertising platform, and Inca APAC, an AI powered influencer marketing business spanning nine countries. He also helped establish full stack performance and commerce service suites that became central to client growth strategies.

Kazi was generous in his acknowledgements, thanking colleagues, mentors, clients and partners across the WPP network for their trust and collaboration. A special mention went to his teams, whom he credited for turning ambitious ideas into products that delivered consistent client impact, while still making time for the lighter moments along the way.

“WPP Media skilled me up in fostering innovation, continuous reinvention, client centricity and leading with purpose,” he said, adding that while it was not easy to say goodbye to a place that had long felt like home, the time felt right to embrace new opportunities.

Before WPP, Kazi built an international career spanning Yahoo, The Economist, The Times of India, JVC and Hutchison Whampoa, with roles across India, the Middle East, the UK and Singapore. Each stop added another layer to a career that blended media, technology and commercial strategy.

As he signs off from WPP Media, Kazi leaves behind a legacy of platforms, people and progress, and an industry keen to see what chapter he writes next.