Aarti Laxmanan joins DP World as India comms chief

MUMBAI: DP World has found its new storyteller-in-chief. Aarti Laxmanan has joined the ports-to-logistics giant as senior director – corporate communication, Indian subcontinent, taking charge of everything from media relations to reputation management across the region.

Laxmanan is no newcomer to the trenches. A quarter-century in the business, split between newsroom and boardroom, has left her fluent in both breaking news and corporate nerves. She began life as a business journalist and was on the founding teams of two of India’s biggest business news brands, CNBC-TV18 and NDTV Profit — credentials that explain her instinct for a story and an even sharper one for managing it.

At DP World, Laxmanan will build the integrated communications playbook across the subcontinent: public relations, advocacy, social media, employer branding, internal communication and crisis management all fall under her watch, alongside the trickier art of turning business sentiment into hard boardroom outcomes.

Her last stop was Vedanta Power, where as chief communication and advocacy officer she steered the messaging through the company’s demerger and stock-exchange listing and the launch of two new power plants — no small feat of narrative control for a business in the middle of reinventing itself. Before that, she ran group CSR communications at Vedanta Group, where she helped tell the story behind Nand Ghar, one of India’s largest women-and-child welfare initiatives, backed by an annual social investment of up to Rs 450 crore.

In between came a stint as head of corporate communication at UFlex Limited, India’s largest flexible packaging materials group, where she handled brand management across the company’s global footprint. A brief but glamorous detour followed at the wellness retreat Ananda in the Himalayas, courting high-net-worth clients before she returned to the corporate fold.

But it is NDTV where Laxmanan cut her teeth over 14 years, rising from guest-management roles to vice-president of corporate relations, and along the way stitching together marquee properties such as NDTV’s Business Leadership Awards, its Davos coverage of the World Economic Forum, and the network’s ambitious 25 Greatest Living Legends of Indians series.

That range — newsroom instincts, boardroom discipline and a black book of contacts spanning India Inc and Global Inc alike — is precisely what DP World is now putting to work. With Laxmanan holding the pen, the company’s story across the subcontinent looks set for a considerably sharper telling.