MAM
Dentsu appoints Saagar Sethi to lead Amplifi in India
Mumbai: Dentsu India appointed Saagar Sethi as the president of its supply side management platform, Amplifi. Saagar stepped into the role in April 2022, as part of the increased media leadership roster across Dentsu India.
In his new role, Saagar will lead the network’s investment management, media trading (media owner services and principal buying) and content (original partnerships & entertainment) businesses in India. He will also have responsibility for helping drive the continued growth of The Story Lab and Posterscope, two specialist agency units within Dentsu which focus on entertainment production and out of home (OOH) capabilities, respectively. Saagar will report to Divya Karani, media CEO, Dentsu – South Asia and work closely with the global Amplifi leadership to focus on creating truly sustainable values for Dentsu and its partners in India and across the globe.
Armed with 15 years of experience in transition management, Saagar’s appointment echoes Dentsu’s commitment to continually elevate its growth trajectory across markets. The network’s rapid transformation ensures it offers long-term sustainable growth to clients via distinctive, integrated capabilities in an environment which is forever changing.
Prior to this, Saagar was the head of indirect procurement in LG Electronics India, where he played an instrumental role in successfully handling diversified, complex and companywide transformation projects, nationally and internationally. He has also participated in organizational design, transitioning and change management journeys for leading brands like LG Electronics and Ernst & Young.
Commenting on the appointment, Divya Karani said, “We are excited to have Saagar join our management team as we consolidate and prepare for the next stage of growth. In today’s increasingly complex media market, the experience he brings to the table will help us increase our client delivery skills in India.”
Saagar added, “I have always been passionate about media. The timing of this opportunity could not have been better. This role complements my transformation experience and passion. I am committed to creating synergies and incremental value for all our clients, stakeholders, and partners, underpinned by the need of driving compliance and transparency. Truly, it is an exciting time to be at Dentsu India.”
Brands
Google completes $32 billion Wiz deal to boost AI and cloud security
Wiz joins Google Cloud but keeps multi-cloud support across rival platforms
NEW YORK: Google has completed its $32 billion acquisition of cloud security company Wiz, marking the biggest deal in the tech giant’s history and signalling a major push to strengthen security in the era of artificial intelligence and multi-cloud computing.
The New York-headquartered cybersecurity firm will join Google Cloud while continuing to operate under the Wiz brand. Crucially, the company will maintain support for multiple cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud, reflecting the reality that most large organisations run their systems across several cloud providers.
Google said the acquisition is designed to help organisations build and scale applications more securely as businesses and governments increasingly move critical systems and data to the cloud. At the same time, the rapid adoption of generative AI has introduced new cybersecurity risks, with attackers also using AI to launch faster and more sophisticated attacks.
Wiz has built a reputation for simplifying cloud security. Its platform maps entire cloud environments, identifying vulnerabilities, potential attack paths and misconfigurations before they can be exploited. By connecting insights from code, cloud infrastructure and runtime environments, it allows security and engineering teams to detect and fix risks early in the development cycle.
Bringing Wiz into Google Cloud will create what the company describes as a unified security platform capable of detecting, preventing and responding to threats across cloud and AI environments. The combined offering will also integrate Google’s own security capabilities, including threat intelligence tools, security operations platforms and the cybersecurity expertise of Mandiant.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the move reflects the growing importance of security as more organisations rely on AI and cloud technologies. “Keeping people safe online has always been part of Google’s mission,” he said, adding that the partnership will help organisations innovate with greater confidence.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, said the goal is to make security an enabler rather than a roadblock for businesses building modern applications. He noted that the combined technologies will simplify the complex task of protecting hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
For Wiz, the acquisition opens the door to global scale while keeping its core philosophy intact. Co-founder and CEO Assaf Rappaport said the company remains committed to an open, multi-cloud approach and will continue supporting customers regardless of where their workloads run.
Over the past year, Wiz has expanded its platform to address emerging risks tied to AI applications, including tools that help organisations monitor AI usage, detect AI-specific vulnerabilities and secure AI workloads during runtime.
With Google’s infrastructure, artificial intelligence capabilities and security ecosystem now behind it, Wiz plans to accelerate development of its platform while continuing to serve enterprises, governments and start-ups operating across different cloud environments.
For Google Cloud, the acquisition adds a powerful piece to its security puzzle as competition intensifies among global cloud providers. For customers, it promises a future where building fast in the cloud does not have to come at the expense of staying secure.
