MAM
Mandira moves in as Howden eyes a high-stakes M&A power play
MUMBAI: Howden’s latest appointment is anything but business as usual, it’s business with intent. The global insurance and reinsurance broking giant has announced Mandira Gupta as its new managing director & head of M&A, IMEA, placing a seasoned dealmaker at the helm of its transactional risk and private equity solutions playbook.
Based out of Mumbai, Mandira joins at a time when India’s mergers and acquisitions landscape is on a blistering upswing. According to Grant Thornton Bharat, the first quarter of 2025 saw deals worth 5.3 billion dollars marking a 204 per cent jump in value and a 25 per cent rise in volume over Q1 last year. It’s a deal party, and Howden just handed the aux to one of the sharpest minds in the room.
Mandira’s reputation precedes her. She’s credited with building India’s Transaction Risk (TR) insurance practice from the ground up, and has over 20 years of experience across insurance broking and investment banking. Prior to this, she held senior leadership at Marsh India, where she steered the PEMA practice in India and led the TR vertical across India, the Middle East, and Africa.
From headline-grabbing mega deals to needle-threading cross-border transactions, Mandira’s portfolio is stacked with complexity, scale, and innovation making her a natural fit to drive Howden’s ambitions across the IMEA region.
IMEA managing director & head of M&A Mandira Gupta said, “I am delighted to join Howden, and look forward to contributing to its growth and business objectives. My main emphasis will be on creating customized solutions for high-profile transactions, leveraging my long-standing relationships within the industry.”
Howden India CEO & MD Amit Agarwal added, “We are proud to welcome Mandira to our team. Her appointment strengthens Howden India’s dynamic growth and firm dedication to enhancing its expertise in the PE and M&A sectors, as we continue to expand our capabilities and deliver exceptional value to our clients.”
With India fast becoming one of the most dynamic M&A markets in the world, and deal tables growing longer by the day, Howden’s latest hire isn’t just timely, it’s tactical. And with Mandira Gupta leading the charge, the message is clear: big deals need bigger vision and even sharper minds.
Brands
AI becomes key tool for Indian travellers, Agoda report finds
68 per cent plan to use AI for trips as 33 per cent already rely on it.
MUMBAI: Holiday planning is getting a software upgrade less “Where should we go?” and more “What does the algorithm say?” Indian travellers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to map their journeys, with new data from Agoda’s 2026 Travel Outlook Report suggesting that AI is fast becoming central to how trips are imagined, planned and booked.
While 33 per cent of respondents said they already use AI tools for travel planning, a far larger 68 per cent indicated they are likely to rely on it for their next trip pointing to a sharp acceleration in adoption in a market already comfortable with digital-first travel.
What travellers want from AI, however, goes well beyond basic search. The report shows 38 per cent are looking for recommendations on local attractions and activities, while 37 per cent expect personalised itineraries. Destination discovery remains a key use case at 29 per cent, with dining suggestions (23 per cent) and budget management (22 per cent) also emerging as practical applications.
The shift reflects a broader change in expectations AI is no longer a novelty but a planning companion expected to work across every stage of the journey, from inspiration to execution.
Trust levels appear to be keeping pace. Nearly 88 per cent of respondents said they either trust or feel neutral about AI-generated recommendations, including 53 per cent who expressed clear confidence. This builds on earlier trends, with Agoda’s 2025 survey showing nine in ten Indian travellers already using apps to book travel suggesting AI adoption is more evolution than disruption.
The company has been testing this appetite through initiatives such as its 2025 AI-powered Vacation Planner campaign, which generated customised itineraries and visuals based on user inputs, delivered with a layer of celebrity-led engagement.
For platforms like Agoda, which aggregates more than 6 million properties, over 130,000 flight routes and 300,000 travel activities, AI offers a way to navigate scale without overwhelming users turning abundance into relevance.
As AI continues to embed itself into everyday decision-making, India is emerging as a market where travel planning is not just going digital, but decisively intelligent.
