MAM
Equitas brings in Balaji Nuthalapadi to hardwire its digital backbone
MUMBAI: India’s second-largest small finance bank just added some serious tech muscle. Equitas Small Finance Bank has appointed Balaji Nuthalapadi as executive director – technology and operations, signalling a sharp push towards tech-led transformation, seamless customer journeys and operational muscle.
The appointment, effective 29 March 2025, has received the green light from both the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Bank’s Board. With this move, Equitas is throwing down the digital gauntlet, placing a proven transformation leader at the heart of its operations.
“We are delighted to welcome Balaji Nuthalapadi to our leadership team. His vast experience in banking operations, technology and digital transformation will be a valuable asset as we continue to enhance our operational efficiency and drive innovation. His passion for digital banking, financial inclusion and social impact aligns seamlessly with the values and mission of Equitas Small Finance Bank,” said Equitas Small Finance Bank MD & CEO Vasudevan P N.
Nuthalapadi joins the Chennai-based bank with a CV that reads like a fintech playbook. At Citi Bank, he served as MD & head of centralised controls testing execution. There, he built a 1,100-member India team—one of the largest in global banking—to oversee international controls testing.
Previously, as MD & head of operations and technology for Citi south Asia, he helmed functions across India and southeast Asia, playing a crucial role in expanding Citi’s global hubs in India. An IIM Ahmedabad alumnus, he brings over two decades of hands-on expertise across operations, digital banking, and wealth management.
Now, Equitas is counting on that arsenal of experience to turbocharge its already impressive growth story. With a stronghold in financial inclusion and digital-first banking, the bank sees Balaji as the lynchpin of its future tech playbook.
The question now: how fast can he turn transformation into traction?
AD Agencies
JioStar study with BARC and Nielsen finds TV and digital ads reach different audiences during T20 World Cup
JioStar’s T20 World Cup data shows cross-screen duplication below 10 per cent, setting the stage for a blockbuster IPL
MUMBAI: The numbers are in, and they are striking. During the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, television and digital advertising campaigns barely stepped on each other’s toes. Cross-screen audience duplication stayed below 10 per cent across every participating campaign, a finding that upends the assumption that brands paying for both screens are largely paying twice to reach the same eyeballs.
JioStar, the media giant that broadcast the tournament across television and digital platforms, on Tuesday unveiled the findings from BARC | Nielsen One Ads, a cross-screen measurement solution deployed for the first time at scale during the World Cup. The verdict: TV and digital are not cannibalising each other. They are reaching fundamentally different people.
The study found that digital platforms are delivering genuinely incremental audiences, viewers who would not have been reached on television alone, while enabling more precise targeting across devices. The combined effect gives advertisers what the industry has long craved: a unified, deduplicated four-screen audience that marries the blunt-instrument scale of television with the surgical precision of digital.
“The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 has once again demonstrated the power of scale in live sports, and these findings take it a step further by quantifying how that scale translates across screens,” said Anup Govindan, head of sales, sports, JioStar. “With less than 10 per cent duplication, we now have clear, measurable evidence of how integrated planning delivers both efficiency and impact for advertisers. As we look ahead to IPL 2026, this sets a strong foundation for brands to plan with greater confidence, leveraging cross-screen strategies to maximise reach and effectiveness at scale.”
The methodology behind the findings stitches together two measurement giants. BARC India supplies linear television data; Nielsen brings its digital measurement capabilities across connected TV, mobile and desktop. The result is a single, deduplicated view of campaign reach and frequency, the kind of unified currency that advertisers have been demanding as audiences scatter across screens.
The timing is deliberate. As consumption habits splinter, viewers flicking between the living-room set, the smartphone on the sofa and the laptop at the kitchen table, the case for unified measurement has grown urgent. A brand buying a 30-second slot on Star Sports and a pre-roll on JioCinema can now know, with some rigour, whether those two buys are actually compounding their reach or merely doubling their spend.
JioStar, BARC India and Nielsen say the learnings will directly inform cross-screen strategies for upcoming tentpole events. IPL 2026 is next. If the World Cup data holds, and there is little reason to think it will not, brands that treat television and digital as a single, coordinated buy rather than two separate line items will arrive at the auction with a sharper pencil and a cleaner brief. In India’s ferociously competitive advertising market, that edge is everything.
