Brands
Manmeet Ahluwalia pilots and lands at EaseMyTrip
NEW DELHI: Manmeet Ahluwalia has landed at EaseMyTrip as chief marketing officer, bringing 30 years of battle-tested experience from the frontlines of travel and hospitality marketing. The appointment, effective October 2025, marks another chapter for an executive who has left his mark everywhere from Expedia’s global sponsorships to the luxury corridors of Oberoi Hotels.
Ahluwalia’s CV reveals a much travelled career over several travel brands. At Expedia group, where he spent nearly 11 years, he orchestrated the company’s sponsorship of UEFA Champions League as official travel partner—designing omnichannel campaigns that spanned stadium perimeter branding, influencer marketing and co-branded partnerships across North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe. He drove the company’s India entry and market-share growth whilst simultaneously running employer branding for Expedia’s Gurgaon capability centre, the firm’s third-largest facility globally after Seattle and London.
Before Expedia, Ahluwalia cut his teeth at Yatra.com as senior marketing manager, led digital marketing across three continents for Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, and managed tourism business across North and East India for Singapore Tourism Board. His stint at Marriott International saw him deliver 30,000 room nights for the hotel giant’s global network.
More recently, Ahluwalia served as director of brand and performance channels at Sommet Education, the world leader in hospitality management education, where he drove a 30 per cent year-on-year increase in student intake. He also held the director of marketing communications role at Ahmedabad University, establishing brand leadership through digital acquisition strategies.
Between his corporate roles, Ahluwalia co-founded Brand Muse Consulting in November 2024—a boutique collective offering strategic counsel on brand positioning and creative development. The venture, which wrapped up in November 2025 just before his EaseMyTrip appointment, handled select advisory engagements with founders and marketing teams seeking external perspective on brand clarity.
His appointment arrives as India’s online travel sector heats up. EaseMyTrip will be banking on Ahluwalia’s playbook: omnichannel campaigns, performance marketing, influencer partnerships and the kind of data-driven rigour that drove results at his previous stops. With three decades of making brands sing in competitive markets, he knows the tune well enough.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
