MAM
Mars Wrigley India exemplifies inclusion and diversity with five key appointments
Mumbai: In a significant move demonstrating its ambitious focus on inclusion and diversity and continued investment in the talent pool in India, Mars Wrigley on Thursday announced the appointment of three new women executives in its India Leadership Team and chose two executives from India to take up global roles critical to the company’s growth strategy.
Richa Singh, Sunita Patnaik, and Shahine Ardeshir have joined Mars Wrigley India Leadership Team as chief financial officer (CFO), director – corporate affairs, and director – people and organization (P&O) India, respectively, while Chirag Shah has been elevated as CFO of Nature’s Bakery, a Mars business in the US, and Hegeler Solomon promoted to director of people and organisation, Mars Wrigley Asia.
“Fostering talent and building capability remain a cornerstone of Mars Wrigley and we are highly intentional in finding the best talent, building the right capabilities and creating an environment of inclusion and diversity,” said Mars Wrigley India, general manager, Kalpesh R Parmar. “This is instrumental to our ability to deliver our growth legacy and navigate the challenges as well as capitalize on the opportunities that lay ahead as we remain steadfast on our long-term commitment to India. Aligned with this, I am pleased to welcome Richa, Sunita and Shahine to Mars Wrigley India’s leadership team. These appointments advance our commitment to bringing on board strong women leaders to position us well in our journey of purpose-led growth.”
“Equally, I am very excited that Chirag Shah and Hegeler Solomon have been elevated to lead global positions within Mars. Both of them have been strong architects in India’s growth story for Mars Wrigley and have made a significant contribution to the business. I am very proud of this move as it is a strong testament of our ability to nurture and export world-class talent from India for the company globally. Their unique experiences in a diverse and fastest-growing market like India will help shape and contribute to the transformative growth strategy of the company across the markets. I wish all of them the very best as they begin their new assignments,” Parmar added.
Richa Singh comes with a global experience of over two decades across consumer durables and FMCG companies, leading business accelerations and transformations, process optimisations, among others. She joins from Niine Pvt Ltd, a start up in feminine hygiene that she led for three years. Prior to Niine, she worked in Philips Healthcare@Home, Philips Consumer, J&J Medical ASEAN, Coca-Cola, and P&G across India, ASEAN, Australia, and Japan. Richa replaces Chirag Shah.
Sunita Patnaik comes with nearly two decades of experience in journalism, corporate affairs, communications, CSR, and Sustainability. Sunita joins from Facebook India where she led content and programs policy communications. Prior to Facebook, Sunita was associated with Walmart India and Cargill India. In her current role, Sunita will be responsible for leading government relations, corporate communications, PR, and advocacy efforts across all Mars Wrigley India brands and verticals.
Shahine Ardeshir comes with a wealth of experience, a large part of it from within the company, having joined Mars in 2012. She has held a number of key roles within the leadership team, including most recently as Associate Relations (AR) Lead for the segment across India, Middle East and South Africa. She played an integral part in launching and stabilising AR operations of the new People and Organization operating model, across a diverse region, supporting all segments including Mars Wrigley, Pet Nutrition, and Royal Canin. Shahine replaces Hegeler Solomon.
Richa, Sunita, and Shahine will be based in Gurugram.
Chirag Shah joined the company in 2016 as CFO for the erstwhile Mars Chocolate segment in India. He was later appointed as Finance Director for the Mars Wrigley integrated business in 2017 in India. Shah will be relocating to the US shortly.
Hegeler Solomon joined Mars in May 2014 as People and Organization Business Partner for the erstwhile Wrigley segment and subsequently moved as director – people and organization for Wrigley South Asia. Later he was appointed as director – people and organisation for the combined Mars Wrigley unit in India. During this stint, Solomon played the lead role in integrating the structure of the two different organisations and created an enabling culture that helped the company secure a ‘Great Place to Work’ status in India. Solomon will transition to his new role in September.
MAM
AI could unlock billions for India’s $30 billion media industry, says JioStar vice-chairman Uday Shankar
JioStar vice-chairman urges industry to seize once-in-a-generation AI moment to turn India into the world’s creative capital
DELHI: India’s media industry stands at a historic inflection point. Artificial intelligence, long discussed as a technological disruptor, could now become the lever that propels the country from a domestic content giant to a global creative powerhouse.
Delivering the keynote at the IndiaAI Impact Summit, Uday Shankar argued that AI offers India a once-in-a-generation opportunity to lead, not follow, in global media and entertainment.
Shankar credited the prime minister’s vision for centring India’s growth agenda around AI and described the summit as overdue . Drawing on three decades in media, he traced the industry’s transformation from the arrival of the first newsroom computers to the launch of India’s earliest digital platforms, each wave of technology reshaping speed, scale and audience engagement.
The numbers tell a story of staggering growth. In just 25 years, India’s media and entertainment sector has expanded from a few billion dollars to become the world’s fifth-largest market, contributing more than $30bn to the economy. Television households have jumped from about 70m to over 210m, with more than 800m video consumers today.
Yet global influence remains elusive. While South Korea exported Squid Game and Parasite to worldwide acclaim, and Puerto Rico produced the most-streamed artist on the planet, India has struggled to consistently break through beyond its domestic and diaspora audiences .
The constraints are structural. Hollywood studio productions command budgets of $65m to $100m, with tentpoles running as high as $300m. The average Indian film operates on $3m to $5m . A marquee US television episode can cost $20m to $30m; an Indian serial is typically produced for Rs 7 lakh to Rs 10 lakh per episode, roughly $10,000. The capital gap, Shankar argued, has narrowed ambition and limited global competitiveness.
AI, he said, changes the equation by rewiring the three pillars of the industry: content, consumer and commerce.
On content, AI-powered production is collapsing infrastructure costs and accelerating timelines. At JioStar, the company recently produced Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh, a 100-episode live-action series delivered three to five times faster than a traditional production pipeline. The implication is stark. The remaining constraint is no longer capital, but imagination.
On consumers, AI enables conversational discovery, interactive storytelling and regionalisation that goes beyond simple dubbing to reflect India’s linguistic texture. On commerce, it unlocks granular segmentation and dynamic pricing, moving beyond the blunt instruments of subscription and advertising that have defined the industry for a century.
The prize is vast. The global media market, currently worth nearly $3trn, is projected to reach $3.5trn by 2029. India’s share remains under 2 per cent. Even a shift to 5 per cent would generate tens of billions of dollars in additional value.
But Shankar cautioned that opportunity does not guarantee outcome. He called for three commitments: self-disruption before external disruption, aggressive skilling to create AI-native creative hybrids, and policy frameworks that accelerate rather than constrain innovation.
Hollywood’s defensive posture towards AI, he suggested, offers India a rare window to design the business models and regulatory frameworks that could set global precedents. The shift in advantage, he argued, favours nations with deep cultural reservoirs and massive audiences.
The question is no longer whether India can lead in the AI age of media, he concluded, but whether it will move fast enough to claim that position.
The stories were always here. Now the technology has caught up.
