MAM
J. Walter Thompson India promotes Senthil Kumar as CCO
MUMBAI: J. Walter Thompson has promoted Senthil Kumar as chief creative officer (CCO) for India.
Kumar was most recently JWT India national creative director (NCD) for South and has been the agency for the last 15 years.
JWT South Asia CEO Tarun Rai said, “It’s a new world of communication. Creativity is no longer only about the 30-second TVC but has to work across various platforms. For this new world of communication, I needed a new age creative chief – someone who thinks digital first. Senthil is extremely talented, is focused on work and always leads from the front. His passion for excellence and his boundless energy is infectious. He will partner me in raising the bar of our creative product, building our clients’ brands and attracting the best talent in the industry.”
Kumar added, “I am thrilled to lead J. Walter Thompson India as its CCO. The opportunity to partner Tarun in steering India’s largest agency into the future, challenges and motivates me. Am proud of our current creative firepower across the country and our collective ambition will be to spearhead marketing success stories for our clients with world-beating ideas. The way forward is not just language-neutral and media-agnostic ideas, but to invent platform-specific creative solutions that solve business problems.”
“The journey is never over in this business of ideas as we continue to push harder on the creative front and attract the best talent from within and outside the industry. Our creativity should leap from deep human insight and be driven by ‘Curiosity’ and ‘Collaboration’ while we build our ‘Capability’ to generate ideas that engage with millions of consumers,” he further said.
J. Walter Thompson worldwide chief creative officer Matt Eastwood said, “Senthil is the definition of a modern ideator and leader who thrives on constantly exploring the power of new technologies and platforms to create truly pioneering work. His boundless energy and enthusiasm for his craft, clients and employees alike, will serve him well in guiding and building our creative brand in the region.”
Brands
Zscaler, Airtel launch India AI Cyber Research Centre
New hub to boost cyber resilience and trusted AI use
NEW DELHI: As India’s digital engine roars ahead, so do the risks riding shotgun. In response, Zscaler, Inc. and Bharti Airtel have joined hands to launch the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a national initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s cyber defences and accelerating responsible AI adoption.
The centre is designed as a multi stakeholder platform that brings together industry, government and academia. Its mission is clear: protect critical sectors such as telecom, banking and energy, shield everyday digital users, and future proof India’s fast expanding online ecosystem.
India has long been a major innovation hub for Zscaler, with a substantial portion of its cyber research talent based here. With this new centre, that footprint evolves into a national collaboration engine. The idea is simple but ambitious, build in India, for India, and help power the country’s journey towards a secure and digitally self reliant future.
The timing is telling. India is building digital systems at population scale, not just enterprise scale. That scale has widened the attack surface dramatically. At the same time, cyber criminals and nation state actors are deploying AI to scan, probe and exploit vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, reports millions of infiltration attempts every month. These include espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
In such an environment, perimeter based security models are struggling to keep pace. The new centre aims to push a shift towards secure by design systems and Zero Trust architecture.
Its strategy rests on four pillars: protect through real time intelligence, remediate by working directly with government agencies, facilitate adoption of AI driven security and Zero Trust frameworks, and build a stronger cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global threat intelligence with local network visibility. Zscaler will deploy a dedicated India focused research team and draw insights from its Zero Trust Exchange platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions worldwide. Airtel, meanwhile, will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, helping detect suspicious activity faster and coordinate response across the ecosystem.
Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal, said the partnership extends Airtel’s commitment to safeguarding customers and the nation’s digital fabric. He added that the collaboration would address challenges unique to the Indian market and encourage secure and confident digital engagement.
Zscaler chief executive, chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry, said India’s digital ambition cannot be secured with legacy firewalls and VPNs. He noted that a modern Zero Trust architecture is essential for a hyper connected world and that the new centre would harness the scale of Zscaler’s global security cloud while empowering a new generation of Indian cyber defenders.
Additional members from critical public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative in the coming months, expanding its scope and deepening collaboration.
In a world where threats travel at machine speed, India’s answer is to think faster, collaborate wider and build smarter.
