MAM
GroupM elevates Jai Lala and Sidharth Parashar
MUMBAI: GroupM has elevated two of its senior executives of the Central Trading Group (CTG). The company elevates Sidharth Parashar as head, Pricing & Investments, and Jai Lala as head, Trading & Partnerships.
Both Lala and Parashar will report to CTG south Asia managing partner Prasanth Kumar.
Prior to his promotion, Parashar was the agency buying head for Maxus, for over five years, where he was a valued member of the leadership team, working on media mandates for brands such as Google, Nokia, Vodafone to name a few. In his new role Parashar will be responsible to facilitate and execute GroupM investment mandates across media. His key focus will be on the GroupM trading products that should continue to offer the edge to our clients. All the GroupM agency trading heads and cluster heads will now report in to Praashar.
Prior to Lala’s elevation, he was the agency trading head for Mindshare, where he worked on media mandates for clients such as Pepsi, GlaxoSmithkline, ICICI, Aditya Birla Group and Nike. Going forward Lala will be managing all trading mandates at GroupM. He will also be heading a team of all the heads across verticals: Proprietary media, DTH, Xaxis, Syndication, GME and Special projects and maximize value for our clients. He will also work closely with Parashar and the agency trading heads on delivering the maximum ROI on media investments.
Speaking on the new structure, Kumar said, “As we move into a growth phase largely driven by converging synergies across the group and driving client satisfaction it has become critical that we create more focus, especially in the area of media investment. With the development of new concepts of integrated media, merging traditional and digital media, we are also looking at reforming the way we plan our investments as a central hub. This new structure in our core function will deliver unparalleled client delight and value.”
Brands
LTTS CDO Narayanan Ramanathan steps down
Resignation effective 19 February, company cites personal reasons
CHENNAI: L&T Technology Services Limited announced the resignation of its chief delivery officer and senior management personnel Narayanan Ramanathan, marking a key leadership exit at the engineering services firm.
Ramanathan stepped down from his role, effective at the close of business on 19 February 2026, citing personal reasons. The company accepted the resignation the same day and duly filed all regulatory disclosures related to his cessation.
Based in Chennai, Ramanathan led LTTS’s Digital Products and Manufacturing Services (DPMS) business as a P&L head, overseeing multi-million-dollar operations and large-scale digital transformation programmes. His mandate covered Industry X.0, the Internet of Things, operational technology cybersecurity, robotics, cobots, digital twins, analytics and artificial intelligence.
He joined LTTS in 2018 and spent nearly eight years at the firm, holding several leadership roles before becoming chief delivery officer in November 2024. During his tenure, he worked closely with global capability centres to execute engineering-led digital strategies for international clients.
A technology industry veteran with over 27 years of experience, Ramanathan previously held senior leadership roles at Tech Mahindra, where he served as vice president and global head for connected engineering and analytics, and earlier led integrated engineering solutions across APAC and MEAI markets.
Ramanathan is also the first recipient of the International Galileo Master Award from the European Space Agency. LTTS said there is no additional information to disclose regarding board relationships following his resignation.
