MAM
Taproot Dentsu announces key leadership changes
Mumbai: Taproot Dentsu, the creative agency from the house of dentsu India, has announced key leadership changes on Monday as it gears up to get future-ready. The twelve-year-long journey of the agency and its distinctive culture has built a line-up of new leaders who are now ready to take on the mantle, dentsu announced.
Ayesha Ghosh, who had been heading the Mumbai office, has been appointed as chief executive officer. She will now be responsible for both Mumbai and Gurgaon offices. Ghosh has been with Taproot Dentsu since December 2015. She has led a very profitable office and has helped win important new businesses while nurturing and protecting a culture that allows creativity to flourish.
Partnering her closely in taking on the mantle is Shashank Lanjekar. He has been elevated to the role of chief strategy officer and will now be in charge of strategic planning for both the Taproot Dentsu offices in Mumbai and Gurgaon. Thus far, he had been heading Planning for the Mumbai office, ever since he joined in 2017.
Pearl Vas, who has been with the agency since 2018, takes on more independent responsibilities in Mumbai. She will now be promoted to senior vice president – Strategic Planning.
Under the overall creative leadership of Taproot Dentsu co-founder and chief creative officer (CCO) Santosh Padhi, the creative team for the Mumbai office has been expanded and divided into four units, each to be headed by a senior creative person.
Neeraj Kanitkar, with an experience of 14 years (nine of those in Taproot Dentsu), is the creative lead for Facebook for which he has won the agency awards at Spikes and AdFest. He will be promoted to the executive creative director (ECD). Yogesh Rijhwani has been with the agency for close to five years with a total experience of 13 years. He has been handling Aquaguard and Set Wet. He too will be promoted to ECD.
The other two senior creative leads will be Abhishek Deshwal and Purva Ummat. Abhishek joins from Lowe Delhi as ECD, with noteworthy creative work to his credit on Google, Olx, Micromax, and Vivo. Purva Ummat joins the agency from McCann Erickson Delhi, as senior creative director. She comes with extensive creative exposure on brands like Truly Madly, Truecaller, Hotstar, Myntra, and Dominos.
Abhinav Kaushik, who was Executive VP on the Honda business among other brands, has been promoted to head – Taproot Dentsu, Gurgaon while Titus Upputuru remains very ably in charge of creative for the Gurgaon office.
“The average age of the agency coming further down is the right sign for us being future-ready. Creativity is at the core of our business and we are lucky to have got a wonderful variety of creative leaders in the form of Neeraj, Yogesh, Abhishek and Purva fronting the agency to take it to the next level, along with Ayesha and Shashank in their new national head roles,” said Taproot Dentsu co-founder & CCO Santosh Padhi.
Meanwhile, Taproot Dentsu co-founder and CCO Agnello Dias who has been stepping back for a few years from active work, will further dial down his involvement. He will continue as a consultant for key brands only. His association with dentsu international ends this month.
“I’m delighted that Taproot Dentsu has produced and attracted this kind of talent. Both Neeraj and Yogesh have been with us for many years and the quality of work they have produced in the last couple of years shows that they’re ready for the next step. I have been around these past few years to make sure that they are ready and now that it’s clear they are, I have decided to step back further,” said Dias.
Umesh Shrikhande retired as CEO in March this year, after having strengthened the strategic function at Taproot Dentsu, to drive result-oriented work and also nurtured a very humane work culture. The much-awarded and internationally recognised, Santosh Padhi, will continue as co-founder and CCO and will have a more hands-on role in both Mumbai and Delhi offices.
Taproot Dentsu CEO Ayesha Ghosh said, “It’s as exciting as it is nerve-racking to step into this role! Nerve-racking, because the standards set are very high. And these are tough times for business. Exciting, because we have young blood, hungry to prove a point. Either way, this is an adrenaline-pumping opportunity and with this super talented team, we are set up to win.”
Taproot Dentsu CSO Shashank Lanjekar said, “I see this as a once-in-a-career opportunity to lead a young team to pull off some good work. With a fresh set of minds in the planning teams of Mumbai and Delhi, it only helps the strike rate for great work to be created.”
MAM
Paramount set to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in $81 billion deal
Shareholders back merger, combined entity could reshape streaming and studios.
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… consolidation, Hollywood’s latest blockbuster might be happening off-screen. Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery have voted in favour of selling the company to Paramount in a deal valued at $81 billion rising to nearly $111 billion including debt setting the stage for one of the biggest shake-ups in modern media. The proposed merger, still subject to regulatory approvals, would bring together a vast portfolio spanning HBO Max, CNN, and franchises such as Harry Potter under the same umbrella as Paramount’s own heavyweights, including Top Gun and CBS.
At the heart of the deal is streaming scale. Executives have indicated plans to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single platform, potentially creating a stronger challenger to giants like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video. Current market data suggests HBO Max holds around 12 per cent of US on-demand subscriptions, compared to Paramount+’s 3 per cent, together still trailing Netflix’s 19 per cent and Disney’s combined 27 per cent via Disney+ and Hulu.
Paramount CEO David Ellison has signalled that while platforms may merge, HBO’s creative identity will remain intact, stating the brand should “stay HBO” even within a broader ecosystem.
Beyond streaming, the deal would redraw the map for film production. Combining two of Hollywood’s oldest studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., the new entity aims to scale output to over 30 films annually, while maintaining a 45-day theatrical window. Warner Bros. currently commands around 21 per cent of the US box office, compared to Paramount’s 6 per cent, underscoring the strategic weight of the acquisition.
But scale comes with scrutiny. Critics warn that fewer players could mean reduced consumer choice, rising subscription costs, and potential job cuts as the combined company looks to streamline overlapping operations while managing billions in debt.
The news business, too, faces a reset. CNN would join forces at least structurally with Paramount-owned CBS, raising questions about editorial independence and positioning. The merger has already drawn political attention in the United States, particularly given perceived ties between the Ellison family and Donald Trump, though the company maintains that newsroom autonomy will be preserved.
If approved, the deal would mark another milestone in Hollywood’s consolidation wave shrinking the industry’s traditional “big six” studios to a “big four”, with Paramount joining Disney, Universal, and Sony at the top table.
In an industry built on storytelling, this merger may well become its most consequential plot twist yet.
