MAM
Kaushik Sengupta joins WPP Media as vice president – investment
Media strategist brings 20 years of experience from Wavemaker and Madison.
MUMBAI: In advertising, where every rupee must work harder than the last, the person steering the investment strategy can make all the difference. Kaushik Sengupta has been appointed vice president – investment at WPP Media, effective March 2026, taking charge of strategic media investments for one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing services networks.
Based in Gurugram, Sengupta will oversee the group’s investment mandate, focusing on optimising media spending, forging high value partnerships and delivering stronger return on investment for a portfolio of blue chip clients navigating an increasingly complex mix of digital and traditional media channels.
The appointment marks the latest step in Sengupta’s two decade long career in media investment strategy.
Before joining WPP Media, he spent nearly nine years at Wavemaker India, where he served as client lead – investment and associate business director. During his tenure, he played a key role in shaping investment strategies and scaling media buying operations for major client accounts.
Earlier, Sengupta built a significant part of his career at Madison World in Kolkata, where he worked for 11 years and rose to the role of account controller. His work there focused on media planning, buying and strategic account management, laying the foundation for his later leadership roles in the industry.
With experience spanning media planning, large scale buying operations and strategic account management, Sengupta brings a blend of institutional knowledge and market insight to his new role.
At WPP Media, his focus will be on aligning media investment strategies with evolving audience behaviour and helping brands maximise efficiency and effectiveness in a landscape increasingly shaped by data, digital platforms and cross channel measurement.
As the advertising ecosystem grows more fragmented and competitive, Sengupta’s appointment underscores the rising importance of strategic media investment leadership in delivering measurable business outcomes for global and domestic brands alike.
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
