MAM
Kinetic elevates Rachana Lokhande, Charanjeet Arora as joint CEOs
MUMBAI: WPP’s media planner and digital innovator of outdoor advertising agency, Kinetic India has elevated Rachana Lokhande and Charanjeet Singh Arora as joint CEOs.
Lokhande and Arora will replace Suresh Balakrishna who resigned earlier in July.
Prior to the elevation, Lokhande was working as the vice president of trading and operations at Kinetic India while Arora served as senior vice president for clients.
Kinetic’s Global CEO Marc-Antoine de Roys says, “I want to thank Suresh for his great work at Kinetic. It is because of his leadership and succession planning that we are in a position to have consistency as he transitions out of the organisation. Rachana and CJ are proven leaders at our company who have earned the trust and respect of our employees, vendors and clients. Their service, history, and accomplishments made this an easy decision.”
Before joining Kinetic India, Lokhande worked with IPG and R K Swamy BBDO. Arora has worked for Posterscope, IPG and Reliance Broadcast.
MUMBAI: In India’s fast-moving payments race, Visa has just swiped in a new leader. The company has named Suresh Sethi as its India country head, marking a key leadership shift as it sharpens its focus on digital payments growth in the market. Sethi steps into the role following his recent exit from Protean eGov Technologies, where he served as chief executive officer. He succeeds Sandeep Ghosh, who has moved on after more than four years at Visa to pursue an external opportunity.
The appointment comes at a time when Visa is doubling down on its expansion strategy across India and the wider region, deepening partnerships and accelerating adoption in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem.
Sethi brings with him a broad, cross-market perspective shaped by decades of experience across corporate banking, retail financial services, mobile money and large-scale government technology initiatives. He began his career at Citigroup, where he spent 14 years working across India, Africa, South America and the United States, focusing on transaction banking services within the corporate bank.
His appointment signals a blend of institutional experience and market familiarity qualities that could prove critical as Visa navigates a landscape where fintech innovation, regulatory evolution and consumer adoption are all accelerating at once.
As digital payments in India continue to scale rapidly, the leadership change underscores a simple reality, in a market where every tap, scan and swipe counts, who leads the charge can matter just as much as the technology itself.
