MAM
Leo Burnett bolsters strategic planning team with new appointments
Mumbai: Creative solutions agency Leo Burnett India on Wednesday announced new appointments to bolster its strategic planning team. Mittu Torka and Bonnie Michael are named executive vice president – strategy in Mumbai and Ankit Singh is elevated to executive vice president – strategy in Delhi.
Michael comes with two decades of experience across FMCG, finance, technology, auto, and hospitality. He specialises in providing strategic solutions to brands and organisations, and helping them engage with their audience, to improve their customer experience in an effective manner.
Torka has worked in markets across India and Southeast Asia and her experience ranges from online platform development, customer lifecycle management to crafting brand narratives and go-to-market strategies. She has worked on marquee brands like Samsung, Coca-Cola, Guinness, Huawei, OLX, General Mills, and Mead Johnson over the course of her career.
Singh has been with Leo Burnett for the past years and has over the years successfully built brands, high-performance teams, and businesses for the agency. He has been instrumental in leading the agency’s Delhi strategy team and integral to the multi-fold growth we have seen in our Delhi office, in the last three years.
“At Leo Burnett India strategy has always been core to building success for client’s businesses,” said CEO & chief strategy officer – South Asia, Dheeraj Sinha. “Mittu and Bonnie both come with valuable knowledge and experience having worked across diverse sectors and some of the best-in-class brands. Their addition to the planning team will only help us sharpen our thinking and output on our businesses.”
“Ankit has been a valuable part of the Leo Burnett planning team and this promotion is not only well deserved but also a testament to our commitment to nurture homegrown talent. I am looking forward to seeing how each of these talented planners is going to create magic for our clients,” Sinha added.
MAM
WPP appoints Estée Lauder’s Anne-Isabelle Choueiri as chief transformation officer
Former Estée Lauder executive to lead operations, technology and culture overhaul under WPP’s three-year growth plan
LONDON: WPP has appointed Anne-Isabelle Choueiri as chief transformation officer in a newly created role tasked with delivering the group’s Elevate28 strategy.
Choueiri joins from The Estée Lauder Companies, where she led enterprise-wide strategic initiatives, including the “One ELC” operating model and major upgrades to enterprise marketing, data and analytics capabilities. She also led the redesign of enterprise technology teams and served on the company’s AI taskforce, driving AI strategy, adoption and value realisation across the business.
At WPP, she will be responsible for designing, implementing and embedding the operating model behind Elevate28, the company’s three-year growth plan unveiled in February 2026. She will lead efforts to improve innovation, efficiency and integration across WPP’s client offerings, with a focus on delivering agile, outcome-driven solutions and measurable growth.
Choueiri will oversee organisational transformation across the group, working closely with product and enterprise technology teams to deploy AI, data and technology to build new capabilities and improve operational performance. She will also work with the people function to embed cultural change, strengthen an agile performance mindset and support talent development across the organisation.
Before joining Estée Lauder, she held senior roles across consulting and digital agencies, including at Accenture, Masaï (a Bain & Company spin-off), and Kearney, with experience spanning strategy, data and digital marketing transformation.
Cindy Rose, chief executive officer of WPP, said Choueiri brings a strong track record of leading large-scale transformation across operations, technology and culture, adding that her appointment will help accelerate the group’s next phase of growth under Elevate28.
Choueiri said WPP’s strategy represents an ambitious opportunity to reshape how the company operates and delivers for clients, adding that she looks forward to building integrated solutions and fostering a culture of innovation and change.
She will be based in New York and will join WPP’s executive committee.
