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Titan signs on Farhan Akthar as brand ambassador for Xylys
BANGALORE: Following its recent announcement of signing on Katrina Kaif as brand ambassador for its women’s range of Raga watches, Titan Industries announced Bollywood personality Farhan Akthar as the brand ambassador for its Swiss line of watches made by Titan-Xylys.
Titan launched Xylys in the year 2006, with the aim to leverage the immense potential in the Indian premium watch market. Designed exclusively for the generation of today, Xylus, a new age Swiss made brand, has built up an appeal amongst watch aficionados for its design and style and is now poised to take a bigger share in burgeoning Indian premium watch market.
Said VP and global business head-Titan & Retail, Ajoy Chawla, “Xylys has had a dream run and been growing at a CAGR of 30%, thanks to our investments in building awareness for the brand over the last 5 years. The market in the premium and Swiss segment is fragmented with several international brands, hence there is a strong need to sharply position our brand Xylys and target the young, contemporary global Indian.
Further talking on Farhan’s association with Xylys, Chawla said, “Farhan is a new age, multi-talented individual admired for his unconventional work. He embodies the Xylys brand’s core values of sophistication, individualistic, authentic yet unconventional. We believe he will enable XYlys to connect deeply with the new age, global Indian seeking to express their own identity in a unique way.”
Farhan Akthar, known for movies like DON, Rock On, Lakshya, Luck By Chance and more recently acclaimed for his performance in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, has been signed as the brand ambassador to reinforce Xylys’ brand philosophy of novel design and quality.
Amongst the other Bollywood celebrities besides Kaif, Akthar joins Rani Mukherjee who was a brand ambassador for Titan Raga in 2006 and Aamir Khan who has been a brand ambassador since 2008 for the refurbished Titan brand identity.
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Coca-Cola appoints Tapaswee Chandele as Global Chief People Officer
Succeeds Lisa Chang from May 1, reports to CEO Henrique Braun
MUMBAI- When leadership refreshes, culture often follows and The Coca-Cola Company is pouring a new mix into its global people strategy. The company has appointed Tapaswee Chandele as its Global Chief People Officer, marking a key transition in its human resources leadership as long-time executive Lisa Chang steps down after seven years in the role.
The appointment, effective May 1, positions Chandele at the helm of Coca-Cola’s global people agenda at a time when multinational organisations are rethinking talent, culture and leadership pipelines in an increasingly hybrid and competitive workforce landscape.
In her new role, she will report to chief executive officer Henrique Braun, signalling the strategic importance of HR within the company’s top leadership structure.
Chandele brings over two decades of institutional knowledge to the role. She currently serves as senior vice president and executive assistant to president and chief financial officer John Murphy, a position she has held since May 2025, placing her at the centre of the company’s financial and operational decision-making. Prior to this, she spent six years, from 2019 to 2025, as senior vice president of global talent, development and HR system partnerships, where she led Coca-Cola’s worldwide talent strategy and worked closely within Chang’s leadership team.
Her journey with Coca-Cola began in 2001 in India, and over the years she has built a cross-market perspective through roles spanning human resources and talent development. Her international assignments across Turkiye and South Africa, followed by a relocation to the United States in 2017, reflect a career shaped by both geographic and functional diversity, an increasingly critical trait for global leadership roles.
The transition also marks the end of Lisa Chang’s seven-year tenure, during which she played a central role in shaping Coca-Cola’s global people practices through a period defined by organisational transformation and evolving workforce expectations.
Chandele’s elevation comes at a time when HR is no longer a back-office function but a strategic driver of growth, culture and resilience. As Coca-Cola looks ahead, the focus will likely be on aligning talent strategy with business agility ensuring that the people behind the brand remain as globally adaptive as the product itself.
