MAM
GroupM APAC senior leadership rejig: Arshan Saha named Nexus APAC CEO
Mumbai: GroupM, WPP’s media investment group, has unveiled a roster of C-suite appointments in Asia Pacific who will lead the regional transformation of GroupM Nexus – the global performance organisation that unites the network’s performance talent and technologies into one single outfit.
Arshan Saha, formerly CEO of Xaxis & Specialty Businesses APAC, has been named GroupM Nexus APAC CEO.
Jon Thurlow has been appointed GroupM Nexus APAC COO; this is an additional appointment to his corporate remit as COO of GroupM APAC.
Xaxis—GroupM’s outcome-driven programmatic brand—has promoted former Xaxis APAC senior vice president Deepika Nikhilender to the chief executive officer role at Xaxis APAC.
Completing the Nexus APAC leadership line-up, former managing director of Finecast Australia, Brett Poole, has been appointed the chief executive officer of Finecast APAC & AUNZ.
Arshan Saha said, “GroupM Nexus is a cross-channel performance-led organisation that unites our expertise in service excellence, AI-technology, and the most advanced solutions. This is the future of marketing, and we are poised to offer our clients and agencies the most powerful performance engine that will accelerate their growth. I’m honoured to be working alongside some of the world’s best specialists at GroupM Nexus to collectively cultivate a better media ecosystem.”
A founding member of Xaxis APAC, Saha rose through the ranks to become Asia-Pacific CEO of Xaxis & GroupM’s data-driven specialty businesses, including INCA, Finecast, Sightline, and Acceleration. For over a decade, he led the expansion of Xaxis—an A.I. powered programmatic engine—into 16 markets and multiplied its revenue by 20-fold.
Having orchestrated ad-tech innovation for over 300 brands, large and mid-sized publishers as well as tech vendors across Southeast Asia, Saha was the youngest leader to be voted into the IAB Southeast Asia Leadership Council. He was also the winner of the Best Young Talent Below 30 Award (2012) and a nominee for Campaign Asia’s 40 under 40 Most Talented Individuals in APAC (2015).
As the chief operating officer of GroupM Nexus APAC, Jon Thurlow will be driving the transformation of Nexus alongside Saha.
One of the region’s most accomplished practitioners across the breadth of the network’s business, Jon architected the consolidation of GroupM’s search, social, commerce, programmatic, and addressable practices in Asia Pacific. For almost three years, he oversaw the complex integration of inter-network systems and structures across 16 markets into a unified campaign delivery platform.
Jon Thurlow said, “I’m very excited about the launch of GroupM Nexus across the region. Building on the success of the past years, the expanded service and solutions offering that GroupM Nexus will create represents a wonderful opportunity to deliver genuine market-leading innovation and produce a positive business impact for our clients. For our people, it unlocks new career pathways in data, technology, and practices, giving them immense scope for new learning and development experiences.”
Armed with over two decades of marketing and data science experience, Deepika Nikhilender steered Xaxis’ A.I. and machine-learning ambitions in the region while leading the design of marketing solutions, supply strategy, trading and operations excellence, as well as ad-tech and platforms strategy.
Nikhilender said, “I’m thrilled to embark on this exciting challenge to lead Xaxis APAC into new frontiers where we can break new ground for our clients and agencies with our A.I. differentiated initiatives and solutions. With the digital ecosystem evolving at an unparalleled pace, Xaxis’ armoury of data intelligence and outcome-driven technologies will help future-proof our clients’ businesses. Together with the team, I look forward to cultivating a culture where our talents will continue to thrive as well as strengthening Xaxis’ capabilities to achieve our clients’ desired outcomes.”
With over two decades of experience in product development, tech commercialisation, publishing and advertising platforms, Brett Poole has launched and built profitable businesses across native advertising (plista), data tech (mPLATFORM), programmatic trading (Xaxis), and most recently, television transformation in Australia, where his team grew the Finecast brand to become synonymous with addressable TV and TV innovation.
On joining this new role, Brett Poole said, “I’m thrilled to be given the opportunity to continue growing Finecast across APAC as part of GroupM Nexus. Television is experiencing tremendous metamorphosis throughout the world and there is huge potential to further our TV transformation efforts in APAC, which is well-known for its diversity, talent, and innovative spirit—all the things that are close to my heart. I look forward to working closely with Nexus APAC leaders to build on the outstanding work of our Finecast APAC team.”
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
