Brands
Paytm names Saujanya Shrivastava as ceo, new initiatives
GURUGRAM: Paytm has appointed Saujanya Shrivastava as ceo, new initiatives, strengthening its leadership bench as the company sharpens its focus on building and scaling its next set of growth engines.
Shrivastava will oversee strategy, innovation and execution across Paytm’s emerging businesses. His mandate is simple but significant: turn fresh ideas into meaningful, scalable businesses that can fuel the company’s future.
Shrivastava joins Paytm after a long and varied stint at MakeMyTrip and Goibibo, where he spent more than a decade in senior leadership roles. Most recently, he served as chief operating officer, flights, holidays, gulf and b2b, managing some of the group’s most critical revenue verticals. His earlier roles there included chief operating officer, flights sbu and gulf and chief business officer, flights and growth products, giving him deep operational and product experience in high-volume consumer businesses.
Before his travel-tech chapter, Shrivastava was chief marketing officer at Bharti AXA Life Insurance, where he led brand strategy, digital business, online sales and customer management. He also headed early e-commerce initiatives at Future Group’s Futurebazaar as senior vice president and business head, well before online retail became mainstream in India.
His earlier career reads like a roll call of marquee brands. At PepsiCo, he served as vice president, marketing, launching the Pepsi Slim Can and building the brand’s powerful association with cricket. Stints at Citibank as assistant vice president, marketing and at Cadbury India in brand and sales leadership roles further rounded out his consumer and financial services experience.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Shrivastava brings nearly three decades of brand-building, digital innovation and executional rigour to Paytm. As the company looks to its next act, the appointment underlines a clear intent to back ambition with experience and to turn new initiatives into serious business.
Brands
Lululemon picks former Nike executive to be its next chief
Heidi O’Neill, who helped grow Nike into a $45 billion giant, will take the top job in September
CANADA: Lululemon has found its next chief executive, and she comes with serious credentials. The athleisure giant named Heidi O’Neill as its new CEO on Wednesday, ending a search that has left the company running on interim leadership since earlier this year. O’Neill will take charge on September 8, 2026, based out of Vancouver, and will join the board on the same day.
O’Neill brings more than three decades of experience across performance apparel, footwear and sport. The bulk of that time was spent at Nike, where she was a central figure in one of corporate sport’s great growth stories, helping take the company from a $9 billion business to a $45 billion global powerhouse. She oversaw product pipelines, brand strategy and consumer connections, and played a significant role in shaping how Nike spoke to athletes around the world. Earlier in her career, she worked in marketing for the Dockers brand at Levi Strauss. She also brings boardroom experience from Spotify Technology, Hyatt Hotels and Lithia and Driveway.
The board was unequivocal in its enthusiasm. “We selected Heidi because of the breadth of her experience, her demonstrated success delivering breakthrough ideas and initiatives at scale, and her ability to be a knowledgeable change and growth agent,” said Marti Morfitt, executive chair of Lululemon’s board.
O’Neill, for her part, was bullish. “Lululemon is an iconic brand with something rare: genuine guest love, a product ethos rooted in innovation, and a global platform still in the early stages of its potential,” she said. “My job will be to accelerate product breakthroughs, deepen the brand’s cultural relevance, and unlock growth in markets around the world.”
Until she arrives, Meghan Frank and André Maestrini will continue as interim co-CEOs, before returning to their previous senior leadership roles once O’Neill steps in.
Lululemon is betting that a Nike veteran who helped build one of the world’s most powerful sports brands can do something similar for an athleisure label that has genuine love from its customers but is still chasing its full global potential. O’Neill has done it before at scale. The question now is whether she can do it again.
