MAM
Lodestar Media bags Sapat Group’s media duties
MUMBAI: Lodestar Media has won the Rs 50 million media duties of the Sapat Group of Companies. The company has diversified businesses in tea, pharmaceuticals, real estate and information technology.
Citing the reason for awarding their media duties to Lodestar, Sapat Group director international operations Nikhil Joshi says, “We did an assessment and found that Lodestar had a better fit with us and our brand proposition and hence we decided to entrust them with our media business.”
Joshi also informs that major expansion plans were underway at the company and to support that a new television centric campaign was being planned coupled with a few other activities.
Speaking about the win, Lodestar and Interface Media’s national media director Nandini Dias says, “We were called to make a presentation to the company, after which we won the account. I believe we gave a sound presentation and am very happy to have won this account.”
The new television campaign, which has been done by TBWA Anthem, will be rolled out soon, Joshi informs. “A large part of the creative effort was also contributed by Prahlad Kakkar, who has shot the ad and Sunil Alagh, who provided us with value adds for our brand proposition,” he says.
The creative duties of Sapat, which are at present handled by TBWA are also under reviewal and the company will kickstart the process of finding a new creative partner once the campaign is underway.
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.
