MAM
Razorfish India appoints Swapnil Puranik as Mumbai’s head of strategy
MUMBAI: Razorfish has appointed senior team member, Swapnil Puranik, as head of Strategy in Mumbai. He will be responsible for driving strategic business transformation and digital roadmaps for Razorfish’s clients.
“Growth is the real ROI” believes Puranik, “and that businesses today are no longer looking for superficial solutions and metrics, but strategies to transform and evolve their business by maximizing relevant consumer interaction through technology adoption, data analytics, deeper consumer insight and non-intrusive creative ideas”
With 13 plus years of advertising and marketing experience, across agencies, businesses and successfully running his own startup, Puranik has experience across multiple categories like telecom (RCom); Travel & Hospitality (Qatar Airways, Hyatt, Sofitel); BFSI – Aditya Birla Finance MyUniverse, ICICI Prudential MF, Reliance Mutual Fund; Fashion (Lilliput, 109F, Fusion Beats; Electronics (JBL, Harman Kardon); Luxury (Davidoff, Calvin Klein, Roberto Cavalli) amongst others.
He led the digital marketing team and launched many successful campaigns like iPhone 5S/5C launch in India, longest Twitter campaign during WorldT20 2014 (Limca Book of World Records); leading media for Qatar Airways for the SEA region. As Business Head – Worldoo.com, he was responsible for defining product roadmap, product validation and launch the product
He has also helped startups scale up, which led him to build his own business, which successfully got acquired.
Prior to joining Razorfish, he was business head at Anvis Digtial – a young Mumbai based startup, where he grew the business to become a full service digital and tech company and helped win digital mandates for brands like Qatar Airways, Roche Bobois, Davidoff, Calvin Klein, MyTangerineTree amongst others.
“I am super excited about co-writing the India Digital story with Razorfish. I have been following some of their transformational work in India and global regions and clearly this is where the future is,” says Puranik,
Razorfish India COO Gaurav Pathak said, “Puranik’s incredible blend of a probing and intuitive approach coupled with a mature understanding of the latent consumer insights is what we want to bring as an important dimension to our Digital solutions. We are building a strong senior team that can guide clients in their business transformation journey beyond vanilla digital offerings. ”
Charulata Ravi Kumar, CEO Razorfish India adds, “In today’s digital world, increasing discovery, generating conversations and driving advocacy is all clichéd and given. What we look for is a curious mind and fire in the belly. And of course clients who have the appetite for it to take their brands to the next level of this matrix.”
Razorfish India has a team of over 500 (Strategy, Technology, Creative& Media) across Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
