AD Agencies
Arijit De joins Adfactors PR as director
MUMBAI: Arijit De has taken up a new role as director at Adfactors PR, marking his return to frontline consulting after nearly three decades at the sharp end of communications, media and corporate affairs.
De joins India’s largest communications consulting firm following a four-and-a-half-year stint at Burson, where he served as chief client officer and was part of the India management team, advising top-tier multinational and Indian companies on positioning, narrative, issues and crisis management.
A senior strategic communications professional, De brings deep experience across financial services, conglomerates and global institutions. His career spans leadership roles at Standard Chartered, where he headed corporate communications for India and South Asia and earlier led group media relations in London; Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was India head of marketing and corporate affairs; and Reliance Capital, where he served as chief communications officer.
Before moving into corporate communications, De built a strong editorial career. As Mumbai bureau chief at Business Standard, he rebuilt the paper’s newsroom and covered India’s largest conglomerates, including the Tata group and the Aditya Birla group. He began his career as a reporter in the mid-1990s, covering sectors from telecoms and energy to FMCG and automobiles.
At Adfactors PR, which advises clients across more than 25 industries in 40 cities and was named one of PRovoke Media’s global “Agencies of the Decade”, De is expected to strengthen senior counsel and leadership across complex mandates.
From newsroom to boardroom and back to advisory, De’s move signals a familiar truth in Indian communications: when reputations are on the line, experience still talks loudest.
AD Agencies
Publicis Brazil’s creative chief Mauro Ramalho lands the jury chair at Abby Awards 2026
Mauro Ramalho brings 25 years of global advertising firepower to the new creative commerce, use of data and B2B category at Goafest
GOA: The Abby Awards 2026, powered by The One Club and The One Show, has appointed Mauro Ramalho, chief creative officer of Publicis Brazil, as jury chair for its newly launched creative commerce, use of data and B2B category. The announcement, made on 18 March, signals the awards’ intent to bring serious international muscle to a category that sits squarely at the intersection of creativity and commercial performance.
Ramalho is not a name that needs much introduction in global advertising circles. Over 25 years spanning three countries, he has worked at some of the industry’s most creatively restless addresses. At AKQA in San Francisco, he worked across McDonald’s, Nike, Fox, Target, Kraft Foods and GAP, and helped lead “The Lost Ring” for McDonald’s, one of the first alternate reality campaigns and among the most awarded projects of its era. He later moved to Organic in Toronto, bridging the Detroit and Toronto offices on Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler, before spending over a decade building CUBOCC into one of Brazil’s most iconic and innovative independent agencies, which subsequently joined the IPG network.
A stint at FCB followed, where Ramalho led integrated work bridging online and offline, before he joined R/GA São Paulo as vice-president and executive creative director, stitching together the São Paulo office with New York, London, Portland and California on global clients including Verizon, Google, Meta, Samsung, American Express and Heineken. He now heads Publicis Brazil as its chief creative officer.
His trophy cabinet includes Clios, Effies, TikTok awards and MMA Smarties, and he has served on juries at the Andys, TikTok and the Lisbon Awards.
The Abby Awards 2026 is scheduled to take place at Goafest 2026 on 20, 21 and 22 May in Goa.
For Indian advertising, landing a jury chair of Ramalho’s calibre for a category built around data-driven creativity and commerce is a statement of ambition. Goafest just raised its own bar.
