Pankaj Nagpal named senior vice president and head of programmatic practice at WPP Media

MUMBAI: Pankaj Nagpal has been elevated to senior vice president and head of programmatic practice at WPP Media, a promotion that rewards a career spent almost entirely mastering the plumbing of digital media trading. The appointment follows a two year stretch as head of digital business operations at Mindshare India, and caps a run inside the wider Mindshare and GroupM network stretching back to 2009.

Nagpal’s rise through the exchange side of the business has been steady rather than showy, and all the more credible for it. As vice president of the exchange, and earlier as principal partner heading the exchange for Mindshare’s north and east operations, he drove investment efficiencies for clients through trading practices, managed demand for trading products, and kept partner relationships humming across two of the network’s biggest regions. Before that, as exchange lead for the Rodeos cluster, he ran buying and planning for accounts including Lufthansa, Muthoot Finance, Volvo Cars and Dyson, no small feat of client juggling.

His programmatic credentials go back further still. As partner, digital trading, Nagpal worked closely with GroupM’s digital trading team on spend mapping and investment planning, while catalysing the adoption of digital trading products across the client roster and educating stakeholders on programmatic planning, brand and viewability measurement, and third party monitoring frameworks. Earlier, as partner, digital media, he led digital strategy for the PepsiCo portfolio in India for the better part of eight years, playing a pivotal role in drafting the beverage giant’s programmatic roadmap and measurement framework, while also steering social media and influencer partnerships.

Before his long Mindshare innings, Nagpal cut his teeth at Tribal DDB, Lowe Lintas, Webchutney and Integrid Media, handling clients as varied as Honda, Maruti Suzuki, Hewlett Packard, ITC and Bajaj Capital. That grounding in classic media planning, long before programmatic became boardroom vocabulary, is exactly the kind of pedigree WPP Media will be hoping pays off as it doubles down on AI driven, addressable media solutions for clients.