Brands
Listerine joins KKR as official mouthwash partner for IPL 2025
MUMBAI: Listerine, has announced its official partnership with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) for IPL 2025, bringing a refreshing twist to the cricketing season. With over 95 per cent of adults in India suffering from cavities, according to the World Health Organization, this collaboration aims to highlight the crucial role of mouthwash in daily oral care routines.
KKR, one of IPL’s most popular franchises, is known for its spirit of excellence, teamwork, and passion qualities that align perfectly with Listerine’s mission to promote better oral health. Through this partnership, Listerine will leverage KKR’s massive fan base to raise awareness about preventive oral care, encouraging fans to swish their way to a healthier mouth.
Kenvue business unit head-essential health & skin health & oral care & VP marketing Manoj Gadgil said, “We are thrilled to partner with KKR, a team that resonates with millions of fans across India. In India, oral care is often neglected as part of the overall health regime, being largely curative rather than preventive. This collaboration presents a unique opportunity for us to engage with cricket enthusiasts to highlight the significance of a comprehensive oral care regime by brushing and swishing with a mouthwash as part of their daily routine as well as when on-the-go to ensure holistic oral care. With Listerine, germs will get clean bowled, one swish at a time!”
Listerine will feature prominently across KKR’s marketing campaigns, offering fans engaging content, promotions, and interactive experiences both on and off the field.
This partnership is more than just about cricket it’s about fostering a culture of oral wellness. With Listerine, fans can ensure their oral hygiene is match-ready, allowing them to cheer for their favourite team with confidence.
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.
