Suvigya Awasthi moves from Puma sports marketing to Bistro by Blinkit

From jerseys to jalebis, at speed. Suvigya Awasthi, the lifelong sports obsessive who turned strategy into sports marketing at Puma, has joined Bistro by Blinkit as director, marketing, in Gurugram. A new adventure, he says, and one built around a speedy category.

Awasthi took up the role in October 2026, having left Puma Group in September 2026 after five years at the company. His own words set out the arc: a path engineered from strategy to sports marketing, and now on to building a fast-moving category. For a business that lives on quick delivery, a marketer with a record of moving quickly looks a smart fit.

Start with what he leaves behind. As lead, sports marketing at Puma India from January 2025 to September 2026, Awasthi ran the team sports business across cricket, football and court sports. He negotiated and activated the Puma and Royal Challengers Bengaluru commercial partnership from start to finish, and revenue doubled in the first year. He drove jersey culture, which lifted jersey sales by 80 per cent across team sports.

The numbers keep coming. He spearheaded the Usain Bolt in India event, executed in under 48 hours, with a nationwide reach of more than 630m. He grew the football business through partnerships with Bengaluru FC and Mumbai City FC, delivering 33 per cent year-on-year growth. He led the PV Sindhu partnership, which brought a reach of more than 350m and 15 per cent year-on-year growth in court sports.

The creative work drew applause too. Awasthi created several award-winning 360-degree campaigns, recognised at the Images Fashion Forum and the ET GIRA Awards, among them Cricket is Everyone’s Game, Fan on a Billboard and #RCBEverywhere. He activated talent partnerships with RCB, Delhi Capitals, Bengaluru FC, Harmanpreet Kaur, PV Sindhu, PR Sreejesh, Sunil Chettri, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and others, and conceptualised global crossovers with AC Milan, Ferrari and Borussia Dortmund.

Before that, he was senior manager, strategic initiatives at Puma India from January 2023 to January 2025, and manager, strategic initiatives from October 2021 to December 2022. He led cross-functional initiatives across brand, retail, sourcing, operations and consumer experience, working directly with the CEO and other CXOs. He built partnership pitches and commercial models for Virat Kohli, PV Sindhu and other potential signings, and led commercial bid development for the BCCI Indian cricket team kitting sponsorship. He also built Puma’s merchandising intelligence capability, with category research frameworks, competitive crawlers and deep-dives to sharpen planning and buying cycles.

His grounding came at Walmart, where he spent two years and four months in Gurugram. As strategy manager from June 2020 to September 2021, he led strategic initiatives for the India CEO’s office at Flipkart Wholesale and Walmart India, across strategy, operations and merchandising. He orchestrated the first-ever Big Billion Days for B2B across 56 categories, with sales up 50 per cent over six days, serving as strategic partner to the chief merchandising officer. He also developed the omnichannel fulfilment centre strategy, with a financial model projecting an internal rate of return of 19.75 per cent, a payback of under three years and a 27 basis point improvement in EBIT.

As a management trainee from June 2019 to May 2020, he spent two months on hands-on store exposure, performing each role from floor associate to store management team, with cross-functional training in merchandising, operations, special projects and ecommerce. Earlier, from July 2016 to March 2018, he was a technology risk analyst at Deloitte India in Hyderabad, working on cyber risk assessment and anti-money laundering remediation for US financial services clients. He led a seven-member compliance team with a 100 per cent quality assurance pass rate.

The upshot is a rare blend: analyst, strategist, dealmaker and storyteller. For Bistro by Blinkit, that is a useful set of skills to add. For Awasthi, it is a fresh adventure in a category that rewards speed.