MAM
PokerBaazi.com unveils ‘You Hold the Cards’; onboards Shahid Kapoor
Mumbai: Online poker platform PokerBaazi.com has launched its new brand campaign ‘You Hold the Cards’ featuring their brand ambassador and Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor.
With the campaign titled ‘You Hold the Cards’, the brand aims to create awareness about poker as a skill-based sport and establish that in poker, the game is under your control, and one can emerge victorious based on skills, determination, and right strategy.
As part of the campaign, a brand film has been launched featuring Shahid Kapoor, which showcases him as the protagonist who goes through various unexpected situations that aren’t under his control. However, he continues to focus on his game on the PokerBaazi app and finally comes on top with his true resilience and skills. The film attempts to debunk the myth of luck playing an upper hand in poker while the reality is that skill is the key element to success.
Speaking on the campaign launch, Baazi Games co-founder and marketing director Varun Ganjoo said, “Poker is a sport, period. Poker is also a lot of fun. We are extremely thrilled with the launch of our campaign “You Hold the Cards” and excited to have Shahid Kapoor as our flagbearer. The idea of this campaign is primarily to create awareness around poker as a skill sport which the brand film captures beautifully. This is a big step forward towards making poker a household game in our country. While our approach is digital-first, the campaign shall be promoted across all possible avenues aligned with our target audience.”
Shahid Kapoor said, “When I was introduced to the key insight behind the PokerBaazi campaign, ‘Experts are made, not born,’ it resonated with me instantly and got me all excited. Being able to control one’s fate with the right planning, strategy & sheer grit, and eventually emerging victorious is almost identical to our lives. I strongly believe that the campaign will showcase online poker as a sport which is equally fun & thrilling and will win the hearts of the audiences.”
The campaign designed and conceptualised by Wieden+Kennedy, will go LIVE across channels including social media, OOH, OTT amongst others.
Commenting on the campaign, Wieden+Kennedy creative directors Amrish Kondurkar and Sunayna Sabharwal said, “Poker is a new space in the world of gaming apps in India and it does come with its baggage of being exclusive for only those who know how to play the game well and therefore makes it a bit limiting. We wanted to treat this campaign as a way to build a personality for the brand which is truly distinct. While the category goes behind the usual areas of winning/making money, we created a space which came from a true-life insight and could make people feel they had a chance. That’s where the tagline, Pokerbaazi, ‘You hold the cards’ came from. To clearly establish that what matters is your skill and not luck.”
They further added, “We kept the tonality fun with a strong attitude so that a regular person with a smartphone would feel like taking a shot. Whether it’s the film, the music or the print campaign, each touch point goes back to our attempt to make the Pokerbaazi app a must have on their phone.”
PokerBaazi.com’s announcement of its association with Shahid Kapoor earlier this week comes at a time when the platform recently recorded a billion poker hands being played on its app since its origin in October 2014. The customer-first platform, co-founded by a group of passionate poker lovers, has acquired the top rank in the segment and this campaign, according to the brand, is certainly going to level up poker in India.
MAM
Coca-Cola appoints Tapaswee Chandele as Global Chief People Officer
Succeeds Lisa Chang from May 1, reports to CEO Henrique Braun
MUMBAI- When leadership refreshes, culture often follows and The Coca-Cola Company is pouring a new mix into its global people strategy. The company has appointed Tapaswee Chandele as its Global Chief People Officer, marking a key transition in its human resources leadership as long-time executive Lisa Chang steps down after seven years in the role.
The appointment, effective May 1, positions Chandele at the helm of Coca-Cola’s global people agenda at a time when multinational organisations are rethinking talent, culture and leadership pipelines in an increasingly hybrid and competitive workforce landscape.
In her new role, she will report to chief executive officer Henrique Braun, signalling the strategic importance of HR within the company’s top leadership structure.
Chandele brings over two decades of institutional knowledge to the role. She currently serves as senior vice president and executive assistant to president and chief financial officer John Murphy, a position she has held since May 2025, placing her at the centre of the company’s financial and operational decision-making. Prior to this, she spent six years, from 2019 to 2025, as senior vice president of global talent, development and HR system partnerships, where she led Coca-Cola’s worldwide talent strategy and worked closely within Chang’s leadership team.
Her journey with Coca-Cola began in 2001 in India, and over the years she has built a cross-market perspective through roles spanning human resources and talent development. Her international assignments across Turkiye and South Africa, followed by a relocation to the United States in 2017, reflect a career shaped by both geographic and functional diversity, an increasingly critical trait for global leadership roles.
The transition also marks the end of Lisa Chang’s seven-year tenure, during which she played a central role in shaping Coca-Cola’s global people practices through a period defined by organisational transformation and evolving workforce expectations.
Chandele’s elevation comes at a time when HR is no longer a back-office function but a strategic driver of growth, culture and resilience. As Coca-Cola looks ahead, the focus will likely be on aligning talent strategy with business agility ensuring that the people behind the brand remain as globally adaptive as the product itself.
