MAM
Oracle India marketing chief steps down: Reports
MUMBAI: Oracle India’s long-serving head of marketing has stepped down after a ten year stint that helped steer the company through a period of rapid transformation in cloud, data and AI.
Bhatnagar joined Oracle in 2015 and spent the next decade weaving together marketing strategies across every major business line, shaping how the company pitched its cloud and data capabilities. Her work included building global anchor programmes, driving immersive digital campaigns and strengthening Oracle’s partner and ISV frameworks in Japan and across Asia Pacific.
Before her Oracle chapter, she briefly served as a brand advisor where she helped a major political party sharpen its public messaging and digital engagement. Her earlier senior role at Microsoft saw her lead enterprise marketing for India, launching Azure, Windows 8, Windows Phone, SQL Server and Office 365 under an ambitious reimagining-the-enterprise theme.
Bhatnagar also held leadership roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, driving public sector business growth from 20 million dollars to 110 million dollars in under three years and earning industry recognition for high-impact marketing programmes. Her career spans strategic roles at Primera Networks, Compaq, Telstra and Autodoor Industries, each adding to her reputation for consultative leadership, partnership building and technology-driven storytelling.
With a resume that reads like a cross-section of corporate India’s technology evolution, Bhatnagar’s next move will be watched closely. For Oracle India, her departure marks the end of a decade defined by expansive cloud marketing and meticulously built customer alliances.
As transitions go, this one leaves Oracle with big shoes to fill and a legacy of campaigns that consistently pushed the brand into newer, more competitive spaces.
Brands
Kansai Nerolac tests paint in stratosphere for durability proof
Excel Everlast sent to 86,000 ft, survives -64°C and extreme UV exposure
MUMBAI: If walls could talk, this one would say it’s been to space and back. Kansai Nerolac has taken product testing to dizzying new heights quite literally by sending its exterior paint into the stratosphere in a bid to prove durability beyond the lab. In what the company calls a first for the Indian paint industry, a stratospheric balloon carried a payload coated with its Excel Everlast paint to an altitude of 86,000 feet above Earth. Up there, conditions are less “extreme weather” and more “near space”: temperatures drop below -64°C, ultraviolet radiation hits unfiltered, and atmospheric pressure is only a fraction of what it is at sea level.
Most materials struggle to survive such a hostile environment. This one didn’t. According to the campaign, the painted surface returned intact no visible damage, no compromise effectively turning a marketing claim into a high-altitude experiment.
The initiative, conceptualised by ULKA, moves away from simulated lab tests to something far more theatrical and verifiable. The campaign film documents the entire journey, positioning the exercise as proof rather than promise.
The test also doubles as a showcase for the Excel Everlast range, which includes features such as nano-silica-based protection, 30 per cent higher toughness and crack-bridging capability, along with a 20-year warranty claims now dramatised under conditions few buildings will ever face.
For Kansai Nerolac, the stunt is less about spectacle and more about signalling intent: in a category often dominated by functional messaging, it’s an attempt to turn durability into something tangible and memorable.
Because when your paint survives near-space, the neighbourhood monsoon suddenly feels like a very small test.
