MAM
Mullen Lintas bolsters its North India operations with new leadership
Mumbai: To consolidate its footing in the region, Mullen Lintas has announced new leadership at its Delhi office. The business function for the North region will be led by Sunil Singh Manhas who has been appointed as senior VP and business head. Nisheeth Srivastava, elevated to group creative director, will oversee the creative product and will be partnered by Sarabjit Singh, who has also been elevated to group creative director (Art). Saumya Baijal, appointed as VP and head of Planning – North, will lead the planning function for the region.
The new roles are effective immediately, said the agency in a statement.
The agency’s Delhi office has a diverse portfolio of clients ranging from consumer appliances, consumer durables, home improvement, FMCG, healthcare, etc, and also handles flagship brands like Havells and Dabur. It has also won creative mandates for AkzoNobel and LifeCell International recently. The revamp of the leadership team is aimed to bring about a transformative change to the agency’s Delhi office.
Sunil Singh Manhas, the business lead for the office, comes from Dentsu and has worked extensively across multiple categories and brands like, Honda, Maruti Suzuki, KFC, Hindustan Times, Max Life Insurance, Paytm, CP Plus, Herbalife, and Moov. With over a decade of experience with agencies like Ogilvy, DDB Mudra, and dentsu, his knack for understanding the business of brands will be a great addition to the agency’s Delhi office. Manhas’s mandate will be to deepen the relationship with existing businesses and build new ones, stated the agency.
“Mullen Lintas Delhi is poised for growth having already added a diverse mix of brands into the portfolio this year. We felt that this is the right time to bring in a new leadership team that is young, talented and driven,” stated Mullen Lintas CEO Hari Krishnan. “Sunil Singh Manhas comes on board as Sr VP & Business Head for Delhi. Sunil is a seasoned campaigner and knows the Delhi market inside out. He brings with him a wealth of cross-category experience and knowledge. His drive for new business and his passion for ideas will augur well for us.”
Nisheeth Srivastava, who has over 13 years of experience in marketing, advertising, content and digital, started his career as a brand executive with Mudra Ahmedabad in 2007. In 2010, he moved to Lowe Lintas Delhi as a creative. He has also worked with Radio Mirchi (UP) as cluster programming head and OLX India as brand creative lead in the past. A strong advocate of a digital-first approach resulting in conversation and conversion, he has created some highly recognised work for brands such as OLX, Google Pay, ABP News, Philips Lighting, Dabur Real, Havells, Maruti Suzuki, Cargill Foods, and India Gate rice. Nisheeth’s mandate will be to steer the agency’s creative product to the next level and boost clients’ confidence in the agency.
Sarabjit Singh, who will partner Nisheeth in leading the creative duties, brings 15 years of experience to the table, having worked in agencies like Lowe Lintas, Leo Burnett, Cheil and Rediffusion, in the past. His work has won several awards at shows such as Cannes, Spikes Asia, New York Festivals, Effies etc. Sarabjit joined Mullen Lintas when it started in 2015 and has been an integral part of the team ever since. At Mullen Lintas, Sarabjit has lifted the creative product of several brands that the agency handles out of its Delhi office.
Saumya Baijal has over 14 years of advertising and marketing experience working across agencies like Ogilvy, Lowe Lintas, McCann Erickson and others. She has extensively worked on brands like Google, Uber, Fabindia, HT Radio, Philips and more. Previously, she has also worked at Cisco, as Brand Manager – India. She is a strong voice in the gender movement and a bilingual writer. Her articles and poems have been published in popular, widely read national publications and various anthologies. Her role as the chief strategist will be crucial in the transformation of the planning function at the agency’s regional office.
Speaking on the strengthening of the creative and planning function, Krishnan added, “Under the creative leadership of our CCOs Azazul Haque & Garima Khandelwal, there’s a lot that we have achieved already in terms of creative reputation with some stellar work across offices. To reproduce the same momentum in Delhi, we’ve strengthened the creative team with Nisheeth Srivastava & Sarabjit Singh. They are hybrid creative folks with an innate understanding of digital and traditional.”
“The strategic planning product of Mullen Lintas follows the challenger philosophy and under the leadership of our National Planning Director – Ekta Relan, we’ve made many strides across different brands in our portfolio in terms of brand impact. In keeping with the challenger mentality of the agency, we have brought on board Saumya Baijal as VP and Head of Planning for North. Saumya’s passion for ideas & her energy and enthusiasm towards all things creative, is just what we need for our young & agile operation. With the four of them leading the operation, we are confident of making a prominent impact in Delhi,” Krishnan further said.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
