MAM
RMG Connect Worldwide acquires Direct.com
MUMBAI: RMG Connect Worldwide, the global relationship marketing network of JWT has purchased Direct.com, an integrated marketing communications services provider to global companies.
Based in Miami, Direct.com provides a wide range of integrated marketing services from direct marketing and consulting to web, technology development, and merchandising to select global clients.
The nine-year-old company, which will retain its name, is led by CEO Lance Lazarus and creative director Douglas Fajardo, who will now report to RMG Connect Worldwide CEO Philip Greenfield.
For RMG Connect, the acquisition adds a successful senior management team, an extensive expertise in the technological world, and experience in Hispanic markets in Latin America and North America.
“I am extremely pleased to have Direct.com joining our family today. Since our first encounter, I have been fascinated by the company, the processes, and the culture built by Lance and Douglas. All their actions and decisions have only one aim: be more responsive to their clients’ needs,” Greenfield said.
“The discussions I had with their clients in the last weeks have confirmed that this focus didn’t go unnoticed. I have never seen such open and positive feedback. I am looking forward to helping them and them helping us grow our activities in Latin America, in North America, and around the world,” he added.
The terms of the acquisition are undisclosed.
Brands
Naveen Kokkanti promoted to director – devOps at Nasdaq
Tech leader steps up to steer innovation and modernise systems
BENGALURU: Naveen Kokkanti has been elevated to director – devOps at Nasdaq, marking a defining moment in his 14 year journey through the fast evolving world of digital transformation.
Based in Bengaluru, Kokkanti moves into the role after a short but impactful stint as lead devOps engineer at the global exchange operator. In his new position, he will focus on driving innovation, sharpening operational efficiency and reinforcing the organisation’s technology backbone.
For Kokkanti, the promotion reflects more than a change in title. It crowns over a decade of building, migrating and modernising enterprise systems across some of the biggest names in technology and consulting.
Before joining Nasdaq in 2025, he spent four years at Deloitte Consulting as senior consultant, where he worked extensively on large scale cloud and data transformations. His work ranged from migrating legacy data applications to AWS and implementing unity catalog governance frameworks, to designing multi cloud Databricks lakehouse strategies. He was also part of Deloitte’s Databricks alliance core team, contributing to go to market initiatives and publishing technical whitepapers on migration and architecture best practices.
Earlier roles at Virtusa and Infosys saw him lead cloud migrations, design secure infrastructure environments and manage enterprise grade AWS ecosystems. At Infosys, he led a team of engineers while overseeing everything from VPC architecture and IAM policies to disaster recovery, security hardening and cost optimisation.
His career began with hands on infrastructure and support roles at Micro Focus, Cerner Corporation and Dell Technologies, where he developed a strong foundation in systems engineering, virtualisation and enterprise IT operations.
Across roles, a consistent theme emerges. Kokkanti thrives at the intersection of cloud, data and governance. From Terraform and AWS to Databricks and enterprise devOps frameworks, his skillset reflects the growing demand for leaders who can translate complex infrastructure into scalable, secure and business ready platforms.
At Nasdaq, that blend of technical depth and leadership experience is set to play a key role as the organisation continues to evolve its global technology infrastructure. For Kokkanti, the promotion is not just about moving up. It is about building forward.
