Santosh Hegde joins Groww as head of growth

BENGALURU: From coconut oil to visas to mutual funds, Santosh Hegde has sold to the Indian consumer in almost every way imaginable. Now he is taking on one of the country’s biggest investment platforms. Hegde has joined Groww as head of growth, after a two-year stint as head of marketing at travel-tech company Atlys. The move caps a 15-year career spanning FMCG, entertainment, food-tech and travel-tech businesses.

Hegde joined Atlys in August 2024 after serving as vice-president of marketing at Licious. He recently announced his departure from Atlys on LinkedIn, marking the end of two years at the company. Reflecting on his time at the visa-tech platform, he described the role as his first major experience at an early-stage startup after years in more structured organisations. The job, he said, involved building without an inherited playbook and working across functions beyond a conventional marketing remit.

The Atlys years were busy. Hegde was responsible for the company’s marketing strategy and execution as it sought to build a consumer brand around international visa processing. During his tenure, the company expanded its content and influencer-led marketing ecosystem and built owned channels across Instagram and YouTube. In January 2026, Hegde said Atlys had scaled its owned social presence to 1.2 million followers across the two platforms, while around 60 per cent of its marketing budget was going into content and the influencer ecosystem. That is a bold bet on creators over conventional media, and the numbers suggest it paid off.

Before that came Licious, where Hegde spent 30 months as vice-president of marketing before joining Atlys in 2024. He worked on brand building, category expansion and consumer marketing, including campaigns around the company’s chicken, ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat portfolio. He was also involved in the brand’s refresh, including its move to broaden its positioning as competition expanded beyond traditional meat retailers to quick-commerce platforms.

Earlier, Hegde spent around three and a half years at Disney+ Hotstar. He joined the streaming platform in June 2018 as senior manager for brand development and user growth, was elevated to associate director in 2020 and subsequently became director of brand marketing. He moved to Licious in January 2022.

His longest corporate stint was at Marico, where he spent around seven years after joining as a management trainee in 2011. He went on to work across sales and marketing roles, including area sales manager for the North East and Bengal South regions, brand manager for activation, brand manager for Parachute value-added hair oils and brand manager for the Parachute master brand.

The foundations were laid early. Hegde’s career began with an internship at Deloitte before he joined Marico. He holds a PGDM in general management from the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, where his academic profile shows a focus on marketing electives. He was also a member of the institute’s Students’ Council and coordinator of its marketing interest group.

The analysis is straightforward. The Groww role represents a shift from heading marketing at an early-stage travel-tech company to a growth-focused mandate at one of India’s largest consumer investment platforms. It is a promotion in ambition as much as in scope. Hegde’s career has moved steadily across categories while keeping a focus on consumer acquisition, brand building and user growth, from Parachute and Disney+ Hotstar to Licious and Atlys. For Groww, that is a track record of winning customers in crowded markets. For Hegde, it is the biggest growth brief yet.