MAM
Sohail Khan appointed Columbus India’s business head – West
MUMBAI: Columbus India, the digital agency of Dentsu Aegis Network, has appointed Sohail Khan Qadri as business head – West.
Khan joins the agency to lead Columbus India’s digital agency on record (AOR) business in western India. He will report to Nitin Sabharwal, chief business officer, Columbus India.
Khan has 18 years of experience in digital communication, digital AOR, content marketing solutions, social media optimisation and marketing, search engine marketing, digital media planning and buying, mobile media, and technology and start-ups.
Khan has worked with vMobo Mobile, DGM India, R K Swamy BBDO, Tribal DDB India, Lintas and Interactive Realities. He has worked across businesses into telecom, consumer electronics, retail, auto, FMCG, BFSI, sports, healthcare, public policy and governance. His last stint was at iRealities where he was appointed as business director.
In his current role, Khan will focus on building the digital AOR business for Columbus India. As business head for western India, he will be actively involved in crafting a roadmap for the growth of the digital AOR business across key categories such as BFSI, e-commerce, brand commerce, education and FMCG.
Commenting on his assignment, Khan said, “The digital consumer is evolving, and so are the channels to reach them online. Traditional AOR business has been more focused on being campaign driven with digital coming at the far end of the planning process, largely implementing the strategies driven by a much larger mainline agenda. We are seeing that often the digital strategy lacks cohesion between key elements such as business objective, communication objective, campaign objective, channels of execution, consumer experience, content, technology and brand performance. Columbus is in a unique position to stitch all these pieces together to offer brands a digital AOR that blends the elements of communication, content, creative, media, social, search, performance and finally sales through a cohesively designed and executed digital strategy”
Sabharwal added, “We have set up Columbus to continuously adapt and adopt the latest digital trends and practices and give a holistic and seamless solution to our clients. With Sohail joining us, we are sure of pushing the envelope even further with much deeper insights and solutions to deliver against the client’s objectives.”
MUMBAI: In India’s fast-moving payments race, Visa has just swiped in a new leader. The company has named Suresh Sethi as its India country head, marking a key leadership shift as it sharpens its focus on digital payments growth in the market. Sethi steps into the role following his recent exit from Protean eGov Technologies, where he served as chief executive officer. He succeeds Sandeep Ghosh, who has moved on after more than four years at Visa to pursue an external opportunity.
The appointment comes at a time when Visa is doubling down on its expansion strategy across India and the wider region, deepening partnerships and accelerating adoption in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem.
Sethi brings with him a broad, cross-market perspective shaped by decades of experience across corporate banking, retail financial services, mobile money and large-scale government technology initiatives. He began his career at Citigroup, where he spent 14 years working across India, Africa, South America and the United States, focusing on transaction banking services within the corporate bank.
His appointment signals a blend of institutional experience and market familiarity qualities that could prove critical as Visa navigates a landscape where fintech innovation, regulatory evolution and consumer adoption are all accelerating at once.
As digital payments in India continue to scale rapidly, the leadership change underscores a simple reality, in a market where every tap, scan and swipe counts, who leads the charge can matter just as much as the technology itself.
