Brands
upGrad partners with The Womb to transform learning landscape in India
MUMBAI: upGrad, India’s largest online higher education company in a most recent development, ropes ‘The Womb’ – a leading brand & creative agency/consultancy to chart out an impactful communication drive for the brand. The agency will be responsible for driving the brand communication strategy for upGrad, thereby propelling a long-term brand building by the power of creative and experimental storytelling.
upGrad CEO India Arjun Mohan said, “Given the COVID2019 sentiment, it is imperative for us to understand the evolving consumer preferences and derive actionable insights which in turn, will help us deliver appropriate results. We are excited to onboard 'The Womb' to spearhead our upcoming branding and communication drive. The agency, with its right balance of strategic and creative capabilities, will help us create a compelling business and brand proposition, thereby transforming the online learning landscape in India and overseas.”
The Womb founding Partner Kawal Shoor said, “From the era of doctors, engineers, and CAs, India’s come a long way, and is now firmly part of the global new age economy. The service sector is the fastest growing sector in the country. New careers in the areas of technology, data and finance are now the way to grow faster in life. India’s traditional education system has struggled to keep pace with the needs of modern industry, and this is where new age education brands like upGrad have unique opportunities. As any young brand and business, getting it right early is crucial for transformative growth. And this is where we come in. There are no proven ways to communicate online education brands, and blank pages are what we like the most.”
The Womb founding partner Navin Talreja adds, “The team at upGrad believes in doing things that have never been done before. So it was a great culture fit with what we believe and the work we create. Having said that their faith and trust in us to award us the business without a pitch creates a huge sense of responsibility to ensure that the brand wins in the market. We are up for the challenge and excited. Look forward to this journey.”
Brands
YES Bank appoints S Anantharaman as chief risk officer
Former Jio Financial Services group chief risk officer takes charge of enterprise-wide risk at the embattled private lender
MUMBAI: YES Bank is not taking chances with risk anymore. The private lender has appointed S Anantharaman as its chief risk officer, a hire that signals the bank’s continued effort to rebuild credibility and tighten the controls that once famously slipped.
Anantharaman arrives from Jio Financial Services, where he served as group chief risk officer and built a risk management architecture spanning lending, payments, insurance broking and asset management from the ground up. Before that, he held the chief risk officer role at Bank of Baroda and senior leadership positions at HDFC Bank and L&T Finance Holdings. Three decades in banking and financial services, in other words, with scars and qualifications to match. He is a chartered accountant and a CFA charterholder.
At YES Bank, his brief is considerable. Anantharaman will oversee the bank’s entire enterprise-wide risk framework, covering credit policy, market risk, operational risk, information security, data governance, analytics, model governance and data privacy. It is, in short, every lever that matters when a bank is trying to prove it has grown up.
YES Bank’s turbulent past needs little rehearsing. What it needs now is exactly what Anantharaman has spent thirty years building: the kind of risk culture that stops problems before they become headlines. The appointment suggests the bank knows it.
