MAM
Deepali Jain gets expanded insights head role at Marico
MUMBAI: The fragrance of promotion and greater responsibility on most occasion smells good. As it has in the case of Deepali Jain who has been promoted and seen an expansion in her role to partner – head consumer technical insights + perfumery + design (India + international businesses) at Marico.
A hard core-research oriented professional, Deepali, has progressed in a sustained manner over the 10 years and eight months she has been at the firm. Beginning as a consumer insights manager – innovation and technology she was promoted to principal manger – consumer science after a period of nearly five years. Another four years of consistency saw her being promoted to head consumer insights for hair care, personal care and male grooming – a position from which she got another promotion.
Before joining Marico Deepali spent three and a half years as group project director at TNS Global and nearly seven years at Nielsen beginning as a research executive and rising to consumer insights manager working on some of the top FMCG brands.
“A big thank you to my incredible insights, perfumery, and design team, members at R&D and across geographies for their invaluable support. Looking forward to work for together to drive Marico’s success. Here’s to many more exciting milestones and achievements,!” said Deepali while announcing her expanded role at the Harsh Mariwala-founded company.
Brands
OpenAI hires Nitin Bawankule as head of enterprise sales, India
Former AWS, Google and Disney+ Hotstar leader to drive AI adoption at scale
MUMBAI: OpenAI has appointed Nitin Bawankule as head of enterprise sales for India, strengthening its leadership bench as it deepens its push into one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets.
Bawankule, who will join in mid-May, brings more than two decades of experience across cloud, media, and digital ecosystems. Most recently, he served at Amazon Web Services, where he led multiple high-growth verticals and helped accelerate enterprise adoption of cloud and AI solutions in India.
Announcing the move, OpenAI head of enterprise sales, India Nitin Bawankule said he is looking forward to helping organisations transition from “isolated AI pilots to company-wide transformation” and embedding AI into everyday workflows to unlock productivity and better decision-making.
Before AWS, Bawankule held senior leadership roles at The Walt Disney Company, where he led ad sales for Disney+ Hotstar and television networks, driving revenue growth across major sporting and entertainment properties. He also spent over eight years at Google, including a stint as country director for Google Cloud in India.
His appointment comes at a time when Indian enterprises are rapidly scaling AI adoption, moving beyond experimentation to integrating AI into core business functions. OpenAI’s decision to bring in a seasoned enterprise leader signals its intent to capture this opportunity and build deeper partnerships across industries.
With a strong track record in navigating major technology shifts, Bawankule is expected to play a key role in translating AI’s promise into practical, business-ready solutions for Indian companies.
As the race to operationalise AI gathers pace, OpenAI’s latest hire suggests it is gearing up not just to participate, but to lead from the front in India’s enterprise AI story.
