Aniruddha Sinha joins JK Lakshmi Cement as head of marketing

MUMBAI: Cement is not an easy category to fall in love with, which is exactly why the industry needs marketers who can make people care about a grey powder in a bag. Aniruddha Sinha has built a 25-year career doing precisely that, and JK Lakshmi Cement has just installed him as head of marketing to work his usual trick on its own portfolio.

Sinha’s résumé is not the usual collection of vague brand-building claims. It is a run of specific, numbers-backed turnarounds. At LafargeHolcim, he repositioned the premium slag cement brand Concreto, shifting it from a volume play to an architecture-led, purpose-driven brand, and in doing so scaled monthly volumes from 80,000 to 90,000 tonnes up to 200,000 tonnes within a year, while pushing the price premium from Rs 20 to Rs 40 per 50 kilogram bag. That is not incremental marketing polish. That is a brand being repriced in the market’s eyes.

He repeated the feat during one of Indian cement’s trickiest corporate moments: the Lafarge to Nuvoco ownership transition, which he navigated without losing volumes or customer loyalty, no small achievement when an entire brand identity changes overnight. He then leaned into cricket to cement the new identity, negotiating an IPL association between Duraguard Cement and Royal Challengers Bangalore featuring Virat Kohli as marquee player, a deal that helped the brand’s digital assets generate Rs 4.5 crore in online revenue and over 300,000 social followers in its launch year alone, while he managed annual marketing budgets exceeding Rs 200 crore.

At DryChem, most recently, Sinha ran an even broader remit, holding full profit and loss ownership of a Rs 250 crore toll manufacturing business while simultaneously building the Homesure Samriddhi loyalty programme to more than 25,000 enrolled partners with 65 per cent staying consistently active, a retention number most consumer loyalty schemes would envy. Under his watch, Homesure picked up the Brand of the Year 2025 title in building materials, tile adhesive volumes grew over 400 per cent in focus markets, and decorative paints volumes tripled year on year. He also led the brand’s enterprise-wide identity reset as groundwork for IPO readiness, the kind of mandate typically reserved for marketers trusted with a company’s entire public narrative, not just its advertising calendar.

That is the operator JK Lakshmi Cement has now brought in. India’s building materials sector is only getting more competitive, with Ultratech, Ambuja, Shree Cement and now Adani-owned entities all sharpening their brand plays as the category shifts from pure commodity selling towards premiumisation, influencer-led trade programmes and digital-first consumer engagement. Sinha’s track record suggests he knows that playbook better than most. If his past form is any guide, JK Lakshmi’s marketing function is about to get considerably louder, and considerably more premium.