Ogilvy names Vanshika Khandelwal as planning director

MUMBAI: Ogilvy has strengthened its strategy bench. Vanshika Khandelwal has joined the agency as planning director in Mumbai, stepping into the role after more than two years as senior brand planner at FCB Interface.

Her path there was built brief by brief. Khandelwal cut her teeth as an ecommerce developer at Swiss Military Lifestyle Products before pivoting into account management, first as junior account executive at WeBeeSocial, then associate account manager at Iffort in Noida. A move to Mumbai followed, with a stint as account supervisor at 82point5, an Ogilvy and WPP company, before she landed at FCB Interface in 2024 as senior brand planner, a role she held until this July.

That trajectory, from ecommerce to account handling to brand planning, has shaped a strategist who describes herself as pulling creativity and sharp business thinking into the same frame. Khandelwal has called herself someone curious about what makes people tick and what makes ideas stick, an instinct for decoding culture that agencies increasingly prize as digital and brand strategy blur into one discipline.

Marking the move, Khandelwal said she was excited to begin a new chapter at Ogilvy, looking forward to building meaningful brands and great partnerships.

For Ogilvy, the hire slots a planner with hybrid instincts, part brand, part digital, into a strategy function that needs both. For Khandelwal, it is a return to the network where her Mumbai career effectively began, this time with a director’s title attached.