MAM
Shifali Singh named Forever New India head
Retail star threads fresh energy into premium brand’s Indian chapter.
MUMBAI: In a move that’s been tailor-made for the times, Forever New has just zipped Shifali Singh into the top spot as country director for India because when your brand is all about timeless style, you want someone who can stitch the future together without missing a beat.
With more than 20 years of retail royalty under her belt, Singh is no stranger to turning fashion dreams into serious business. She’s the same force who repositioned Ritu Kumar into a luxury powerhouse at Reliance Brands, supercharged BIBA’s omni-channel game, and co-founded over 70 international brand tie-ups at Myntra-Jabong, giving the platform its global swagger. Throw in her earlier stints scaling Marks & Spencer and United Colors of Benetton India, and you’ve got a leader who knows how to make stores sing, clicks convert, and customers come back for more.
Her mission now? To supercharge Forever New’s omni-channel world, crank up the consumer love, weave digital even deeper into the fabric, and keep that signature premium polish shining brighter than ever in a market that never sits still.
The handover comes with a classy twist, Dhruv Bogra, who’s steered the ship since 2019, is stepping back from day-to-day duties but staying firmly in the picture as Advisor to the Board. His seven years of building the brand from strength to strength will keep guiding the team from the wings.
Bogra put it best, “I am delighted to pass the baton of Forever New India to the experienced and proven hands of Shifali Singh. She has had an illustrious and outstanding track record of great leadership in the fashion space and is well poised to take Forever New to newer heights. I will miss my incredible and highly gifted colleagues who have charted the admirable course of the brand over the last seven years.”
Singh, who first fell for the label as a customer, couldn’t hide her excitement, “My association with Forever New began as a customer, where I developed a deep appreciation for its refined aesthetic and elevated design philosophy. As I step into this leadership role, that connection deepens my commitment to the brand. Forever New holds a distinctive premium positioning in India, and my focus will be on building a future-ready, consumer-centric omni-channel business that seamlessly bridges retail and digital, while driving strategic, long-term growth.”
So next time you’re browsing that perfect dress or crisp shirt, remember behind the elegance is a brand that just got itself a seriously stylish new leader. Forever New? Looks like it’s about to feel even more forever fresh.
MAM
Stagwell expands Trade Desk tie up to deploy Koa Agents globally
AI agents to automate planning buying optimisation and measurement.
MUMBAI: Media buying may soon need fewer hands on keyboards and more prompts on screens. Stagwell has expanded its global partnership with The Trade Desk, becoming the first global marketing network to adopt Koa Agents, an alpha-stage, agentic AI system designed to overhaul how digital advertising campaigns are run.
At its core, Koa Agents flips the traditional workflow. Instead of manually configuring campaigns step by step, marketers can simply describe their objectives, with AI agents executing, optimising and refining campaigns in real time. Tasks that once took days from audience segmentation to performance analysis are now automated and continuously adjusted as conditions shift.
The integration will connect Koa Agents with Stagwell’s proprietary media ecosystem through The Trade Desk’s Open Agentic Kit, effectively stitching together planning, activation, measurement and optimisation into a single, automated loop.
The first phase of deployment will focus on two key areas. For audience planning, traders can define target segments while Koa Agents identify high-value consumers, activate campaigns across premium inventory and optimise performance dynamically. On the supply side, the system introduces deeper transparency, using quality signals such as ad-to-content ratios and refresh rates to prioritise inventory, while offering clearer visibility into pricing and margins during live campaigns.
The rollout will also introduce a conversational interface, allowing traders to query campaign performance in plain language, why it is underperforming, what is driving results, and what to change receiving real-time, actionable recommendations.
Stagwell plans to make these capabilities available to select clients in a closed beta later this summer, with a broader roadmap aimed at automating the full campaign lifecycle, including setup, troubleshooting and predictive optimisation.
The move builds on an existing partnership between the two companies, including Stagwell’s adoption of Unified ID 2.0, The Trade Desk’s privacy-focused identity framework. Combined with Koa Agents, this is expected to sharpen audience targeting, streamline cross-channel activation and improve measurement accuracy.
As advertising grows more complex behind the scenes, both companies are betting that the front end can become radically simpler where campaigns are less about clicks and controls, and more about outcomes and intent.
