Moneka Khurana takes on expanded mandate as managing director, MMA India

MUMBAI: The Marketing + Media Alliance has made its India bet official. Moneka Khurana has been promoted to managing director, MMA India, an elevation that hands her charge of the organisation’s next growth phase in a market it now considers central to its global ambitions.

The promotion is less a reward for past work than a licence for bigger ones. Khurana has spent recent years building MMA’s Indian footprint from the ground up, cultivating member relationships, forging industry partnerships and constructing the platforms that now draw the country’s marketing, media and technology leadership into one room. That groundwork is precisely why the mandate has grown rather than merely changed hands.

Amit Jain, MMA India chair, and CHC India lead at Sanofi, did not mince his praise. Khurana, he said, had built a platform “the industry genuinely trusts”, one that has delivered real value for members through marketing acumen and a collaborative style that made MMA India “a credible force” in a crowded market. As managing director, he added, she was exactly the leader needed to push the organisation’s mission further.

Her brief now widens considerably. Khurana will oversee the rollout of MMA’s global research, marketer capability building programmes, its Think Tanks, flagship industry events and leadership initiatives for India, while deepening ties with CMOs and senior marketing leaders across the country. The goal is two way traffic: India feeding more actively into MMA’s global agenda, even as it draws on the organisation’s international tools, knowledge and community.

The timing is no accident. India remains one of the fastest moving markets for artificial intelligence, commerce, media and data led marketing effectiveness, and MMA is not shy about saying so. Rohit Dadwal, chief executive, MMA APAC, and global head of SMARTIES Worldwide, called India “one of MMA’s most important growth markets”, citing both its scale and its capacity to shape marketing’s future globally. Khurana, he said, had been instrumental in getting the organisation this far, and her elevation was the mandate to go considerably further.

With the ink barely dry, the message from MMA is unambiguous: India is no longer a satellite market to be serviced from elsewhere. It is a growth engine in its own right, and Khurana has just been put in the driving seat.