Brands
Lacoste serves up festive flair with its new court of light collection
MUMBAI: This festive season, Lacoste is acing the fashion game quite literally. With its new campaign Court of Light, the French fashion-sport icon transforms the tennis court into a stage of celebration, where elegance meets energy and the festive spirit rallies in full swing.
The campaign arrives alongside the launch of the Lacoste Sleeveless Jacket, created exclusively for the Indian market. Designed for effortless styling, the jacket pairs perfectly with Lacoste’s knitted kurtas, signature polos, crisp shirts, or laid-back tees making it a versatile addition to every festive wardrobe. It’s sport-chic with a cultural twist, a serve that’s both stylish and seasonal.
Rooted in Lacoste’s tennis heritage, Court of Light reimagines a festive soirée set on a tennis court friends and family gather under fairy lights, dining, laughing, and rallying through friendly matches. The visual storytelling captures the motion and joy of Indian festivity, blending it seamlessly with Lacoste’s understated sophistication.
From iconic polos, shirts, dresses, and skirts to footwear and premium accessories, the campaign showcases Lacoste’s full festive line-up. The knitted kurta, already a hit among Indian fans returns this year, now joined by the newly launched sleeveless jacket, adding a modern edge to timeless celebration wear.
“Festive moments in India are rich with tradition, emotion, and expression and Lacoste is proud to be part of that cultural rhythm,” said Lacoste India managing director and CEO Rajesh Jain. “With the Court of Light campaign and the new exclusive sleeveless jacket, we bring together the brand’s timeless French elegance and India’s vibrant festive spirit. It’s about celebrating refinement and joy with effortless sophistication.”
Available across Lacoste boutiques in India and online at www.lacoste.in, the collection embodies the best of both worlds French polish and Indian passion.
Because this season, fashion isn’t just about what you wear, it’s about how brightly you play your part on the Court of Light.
Brands
Rakesh Menon joins Paytm as avp – lending
Fintech product leader takes on new role after building digital lending, payments and credit products across fintech ecosystem
MUMBAI: Rakesh Menon has joined Paytm as assistant vice president – lending, taking on a new role focused on strengthening the company’s lending and credit products.
Prior to this, Menon worked at Profectus Capital Pvt Ltd as chief manager – payments based financing and digital lending.
At Profectus, he designed and launched digital credit products for merchants with variable cash flows, including overdraft-linked and revenue-share lending models. He led end-to-end LOS–LMS API integrations with payment partners and aggregators, enabling real-time underwriting, disbursal and repayment workflows.
He also worked on funnel optimisation initiatives using journey analytics, improving onboarding, KYC and disbursal conversion by 35 per cent. He developed ecosystem partnerships for transaction-data-based credit assessment and automated settlement systems, and collaborated with credit and data science teams to strengthen risk models and early delinquency detection.
Menon standardised partner onboarding and API frameworks, reducing go-live timelines by 40 per cent and improving digital scalability.
Before Profectus Capital, he worked at PayU as senior manager – presales lead – enterprise business from August 2022 to August 2023. He set up a national presales function for fintech and digital commerce clients, aligning solutions such as EMI, BNPL, BBPS and offer engines to merchant requirements.
He also helped improve conversion rates by around 15 per cent through merchant persona mapping, demo frameworks and structured sales playbooks, working closely with product and go-to-market teams.
From April 2019 to July 2022, Menon served as business unit head – SMB – direct acquisitions at Worldline, where he built the SMB online payments vertical from scratch. The business scaled to Rs 2,500 crore in annual transaction volume, growing at 45 per cent year-on-year.
During this period, he introduced paperless onboarding processes including eKYC and eSign, developed partner dashboards and CRM automation systems, and integrated platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Tally to expand merchant adoption.
Across roles, Menon has worked across digital lending, payments and merchant financing, with experience in product development, ecosystem partnerships, API integrations and fintech-led growth strategies.
At Paytm, he will focus on scaling lending products and strengthening digital credit infrastructure within the company’s financial services ecosystem.
His appointment comes as fintech firms continue to expand their lending and embedded finance offerings in a competitive market.
