MAM
Taproot Dentsu announces key leadership changes
Mumbai: Taproot Dentsu, the creative agency from the house of dentsu India, has announced key leadership changes on Monday as it gears up to get future-ready. The twelve-year-long journey of the agency and its distinctive culture has built a line-up of new leaders who are now ready to take on the mantle, dentsu announced.
Ayesha Ghosh, who had been heading the Mumbai office, has been appointed as chief executive officer. She will now be responsible for both Mumbai and Gurgaon offices. Ghosh has been with Taproot Dentsu since December 2015. She has led a very profitable office and has helped win important new businesses while nurturing and protecting a culture that allows creativity to flourish.
Partnering her closely in taking on the mantle is Shashank Lanjekar. He has been elevated to the role of chief strategy officer and will now be in charge of strategic planning for both the Taproot Dentsu offices in Mumbai and Gurgaon. Thus far, he had been heading Planning for the Mumbai office, ever since he joined in 2017.
Pearl Vas, who has been with the agency since 2018, takes on more independent responsibilities in Mumbai. She will now be promoted to senior vice president – Strategic Planning.
Under the overall creative leadership of Taproot Dentsu co-founder and chief creative officer (CCO) Santosh Padhi, the creative team for the Mumbai office has been expanded and divided into four units, each to be headed by a senior creative person.
Neeraj Kanitkar, with an experience of 14 years (nine of those in Taproot Dentsu), is the creative lead for Facebook for which he has won the agency awards at Spikes and AdFest. He will be promoted to the executive creative director (ECD). Yogesh Rijhwani has been with the agency for close to five years with a total experience of 13 years. He has been handling Aquaguard and Set Wet. He too will be promoted to ECD.
The other two senior creative leads will be Abhishek Deshwal and Purva Ummat. Abhishek joins from Lowe Delhi as ECD, with noteworthy creative work to his credit on Google, Olx, Micromax, and Vivo. Purva Ummat joins the agency from McCann Erickson Delhi, as senior creative director. She comes with extensive creative exposure on brands like Truly Madly, Truecaller, Hotstar, Myntra, and Dominos.
Abhinav Kaushik, who was Executive VP on the Honda business among other brands, has been promoted to head – Taproot Dentsu, Gurgaon while Titus Upputuru remains very ably in charge of creative for the Gurgaon office.
“The average age of the agency coming further down is the right sign for us being future-ready. Creativity is at the core of our business and we are lucky to have got a wonderful variety of creative leaders in the form of Neeraj, Yogesh, Abhishek and Purva fronting the agency to take it to the next level, along with Ayesha and Shashank in their new national head roles,” said Taproot Dentsu co-founder & CCO Santosh Padhi.
Meanwhile, Taproot Dentsu co-founder and CCO Agnello Dias who has been stepping back for a few years from active work, will further dial down his involvement. He will continue as a consultant for key brands only. His association with dentsu international ends this month.
“I’m delighted that Taproot Dentsu has produced and attracted this kind of talent. Both Neeraj and Yogesh have been with us for many years and the quality of work they have produced in the last couple of years shows that they’re ready for the next step. I have been around these past few years to make sure that they are ready and now that it’s clear they are, I have decided to step back further,” said Dias.
Umesh Shrikhande retired as CEO in March this year, after having strengthened the strategic function at Taproot Dentsu, to drive result-oriented work and also nurtured a very humane work culture. The much-awarded and internationally recognised, Santosh Padhi, will continue as co-founder and CCO and will have a more hands-on role in both Mumbai and Delhi offices.
Taproot Dentsu CEO Ayesha Ghosh said, “It’s as exciting as it is nerve-racking to step into this role! Nerve-racking, because the standards set are very high. And these are tough times for business. Exciting, because we have young blood, hungry to prove a point. Either way, this is an adrenaline-pumping opportunity and with this super talented team, we are set up to win.”
Taproot Dentsu CSO Shashank Lanjekar said, “I see this as a once-in-a-career opportunity to lead a young team to pull off some good work. With a fresh set of minds in the planning teams of Mumbai and Delhi, it only helps the strike rate for great work to be created.”
Digital
Galleri5 launches India’s first AI cinema OS at India AI Summit
Collective Artists Network unveils end-to-end production platform powering Mahabharat series and Hanuman teaser.
MUMBAI: India’s cinema just got an AI operating system upgrade because why settle for tools when you can have a full production command centre? Collective Artists Network and Galleri5 today unveiled Galleri5 AI Studio at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, billing it as the country’s first cinema-native production technology platform. Launched on 20 February 2026, the system acts as an end-to-end orchestration layer for film and television, integrating generative AI, LoRA-driven character architecture, controlled shot pipelines, 3D/VFX tools, lip-sync, upscaling, quality control, and delivery, all tuned for theatrical and broadcast standards.
Unlike piecemeal AI tools, Galleri5 controls the entire stack from script and world-building to final master output. Filmmakers retain creative authorship, continuity, and IP security while slashing timelines from years to months.
The platform is already in live use at scale. Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh, an AI-powered series produced under Collective’s Historyverse banner, is airing on Star Plus and streaming on JioHotstar, ranking among the top-watched shows in its slot. Meanwhile, Chiranjeevi Hanuman – The Eternal (produced by Star Studios 18) dropped its teaser on IMAX screens, leveraging Galleri5’s infrastructure for the visuals.
Collective Artists Network founder and group CEO Vijay Subramaniam said, “For India to lead in the next era of storytelling, we have to think beyond tools and start building systems. This is about putting durable production infrastructure in place so creators can dream bigger, producers can execute faster, and our stories can travel further.”
Galleri5 partner at Collective and CEO Rahul Regulapati added, “Cinema requires precision, repeatability, and control. Off-the-shelf AI doesn’t solve that. Orchestration does. We built an operating system where technology bends to filmmaking, not the other way around.”
Under Historyverse, Collective Studios is developing a slate including Hanuman, Krishna, Shiva, and Shivaji blending advanced AI systems with traditional craft. The summit session featured directors from Hanuman, Krishna, and Shiva alongside Collective leaders, diving into real-world case studies: what delivers on screen, what glitches, and how production economics are shifting.
At a summit packed with global tech brass and policymakers, Galleri5 stakes a bold claim, cinema’s future belongs to integrated systems, not isolated gadgets and India is building one right now. Whether you’re a filmmaker eyeing faster workflows or just curious about AI remaking epics, this OS could be the script-flip the industry didn’t see coming.
