From also-ran to number two: how EssenceMediacom rewired India

MUMBAI: Navin Khemka is cock-a-hoop with delight if one looks at the post he made on LinkedIn on 30 June 2026. The reason: EssenceMediacom India has climbed to the number-two spot in the country, according to COMvergence’s annual Billings and Market Share Report for 2024, a seven-year journey from number eight that the president South Asia at WPP Media described, with characteristic understatement, as “relentless execution, strategic grit, and a team that refuses to settle.”

It is rather more than that.

When Khemka took charge of MediaCom South Asia in 2018, the agency was an also-ran, a middling presence in one of the world’s most ferociously competitive media markets. Today, EssenceMediacom India sits at number two among individual agencies in India, behind only stablemate Mindshare, which holds the top position. Wavemaker, another WPP Media sibling, comes in third. The Indian media market has, in short, become something of a WPP family affair at the top.

“Together we didn’t just climb a ladder, we rebuilt it,” Khemka said. It is the sort of line that might sound boastful from someone with less to show for it.

The climb was not, it must be said, a straight line. It ran through one of the more complex integrations in Indian media history. When GroupM announced the global merger of Essence and MediaCom to form EssenceMediacom in 2022, Khemka, a MICA, Ahmedabad alumnus who had already shepherded the Maxus-MEC merger that created Wavemaker, was handed the wheel once again. His task was to fuse Essence’s data-and-performance DNA with MediaCom’s scaled multichannel expertise without losing either the clients or the culture.

He had form. His career, spanning over 25 years, had taken him from Mudra Communications, where he launched McDonald’s in India via local cable television, then an unconventional bet, through Mindshare, ZenithOptimedia, and Wavemaker, before landing at MediaCom South Asia. Each stop had sharpened the same instinct: that what is best for the brand is, eventually, best for everyone.

“I am looking forward to this transformational role,” he said at the time of his appointment as chief executive of EssenceMediacom South Asia. “With our best-in-class data and digital-led solutions, I am confident that we will be able to future-proof our talent and offer new services.”

He was not wrong. The agency navigated what Khemka calls “complex industry shifts,” not least the rapid surge in digital’s share of India’s total media spend, and emerged, by the reckoning of COMvergence’s independent benchmarks, as the clear number two in the market.

“The most exciting part has been watching the team evolve,” Khemka said, “navigating complex industry shifts and finding creative solutions.”

The India milestone is not the only thing burnishing Khemka’s reputation. Globally, EssenceMediacom ranks as the number-two media agency network in the world, according to the same COMvergence report, a position that reflects the scale and ambition of what WPP has built around the merged entity. The agency’s client roster in India reads like a who’s who of the country’s most ambitious brands: Airtel, PepsiCo, Samsung, Paytm, Hero MotoCorp, Tata, and others.

Earlier this month, WPP formalised its transition from GroupM to WPP Media South Asia, and with it, elevated Khemka to president, client solutions, WPP Media South Asia, placing him on the newly constituted Executive Committee alongside Priti Murthy, Ajay Gupte, and Amin Lakhani.

“The view from here is great,” Khemka conceded. “But we aren’t done climbing yet.”

From number eight to number two in seven years. India’s media industry would be unwise to bet against him.