MAM
IMG, WPP join forces for global licensing collaboration
MUMBAI: Communications services group WPP and IMG Worldwide, the global sports, fashion and media company, have announced a worldwide partnership to collaborate in offering consumer products licensing and merchandising services.
As part of the multi-year agreement, WPP and IMG will establish a joint team and share resources to offer and provide licensing services to clients from WPP‘s portfolio of agencies.
WPP CEO Martin Sorrell commented, “More than ever, licensing is emerging as one of the new creative ways of developing brands and sales. It is a capability we see as increasingly important to our clients. We wanted to offer this important discipline in a global execution and with the market leader – that is IMG. In our view, there could be no better partner to help us achieve our goals in this area.”
IMG‘s Sports and Entertainment Group president George Pyne said, “WPP‘s agencies have an impressive roster of clients coupled with the brand knowledge and consumer insights that come from years of experience working with them. We believe that our global execution capability and specialized expertise in the licensing business coupled with their deep-rooted knowledge and relationships with certain client companies can yield some very beneficial and successful partnerships. This is a really natural collaboration that was waiting to happen.”
Executives from the WPP-IMG partnership will be meeting with advertisers who have expressed interest in developing brand licensing programmes or who have potential to do so.
The new WPP venture is an additive unit to IMG Licensing‘s existing operations and the latter will continue to serve existing and new clients without change.
MAM
Beacon Group appoints Dr Rajesh Patel as Group CEO
36-year healthcare veteran to lead Beacon Diagnostics, Vector Biotek, Biogeny.
MUMBAI: A new chief, a fresh diagnosis and a sharper prescription for growth. Beacon Group has appointed Dr Rajesh Patel as its Group Chief Executive Officer, effective April 1, 2026, signalling a decisive push to scale its presence in the diagnostics and IVD space. Patel steps into the role with 36 years of experience across the healthcare and diagnostics industry, bringing a career shaped by leadership roles spanning sales, marketing, business development and operational strategy. His mandate is both expansive and precise: to steer the group’s overall strategic direction while tightening coordination across its three core entities Beacon Diagnostics, Vector Biotek and Biogeny Diagnostics.
In practical terms, that means driving cross-company synergies, accelerating market expansion and strengthening organisational capability areas increasingly critical as diagnostic players compete for scale in a fragmented yet rapidly evolving healthcare ecosystem. The group is positioning itself to capture unmet demand across chain laboratories, key accounts and standalone labs, segments that remain underserved despite growing diagnostic needs.
The appointment comes at a time when the In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) sector in India is entering a more competitive and innovation-led phase, with companies focusing not just on product pipelines but also on service delivery, integration and customer-centric models. Beacon’s leadership appears to be betting that Patel’s execution-focused approach can help translate ambition into operational momentum.
Welcoming the appointment, Chairman Dr D K Joshi described Patel’s induction as a strategic move aligned with the group’s long-term vision, emphasising the role of leadership depth in navigating the next phase of growth.
For Beacon Group, the message is clear, in a sector where precision matters, leadership is the new differentiator—and this appointment is intended to set the tone for what comes next.
