Board Member Category: Speaker 2022

Aditya has the privilege of leading some of the brightest minds in advertising in his role as CEO & Managing Director of the DDB Mudra Group. A homegrown leader, he has risen through the ranks in his 19-year journey with the Group.

Through the promise of Unexpected Works, Aditya helped reimagine DDB Mudra Group for the post-COVID age to ensure an unreasonable share of growth for its people, the company and their clients. Under his leadership, the company has gone on to become one of India’s largest marketing communications networks with successful ventures in gaming, B2B, pharma, and social impact communications. He has led the integrated transformations for some of the Group’s largest businesses, breaking the mould of offline-online thinking and making brand building a fluid and collaborative process. Aditya’s penchant for driving transformation stems from his aptitude and 16+ years of experience in strategic planning.

Aditya believes a diverse and inclusive culture is the key to unlocking a new level of creativity. His vision for creating a diverse and progressive agency of the future is seen through marquee initiatives like ‘The Phyllis India Project’ which creates a community of women leaders, and ‘Open Pride’ that fosters an inclusive and engaging work environment for the LGBTQIA+ community & allies.  Expanding on an organization’s role in how people experience work in tandem with their life, the Group enabled new parents to prepare the ground for Equal Parenting. He has overseen fundamental policy changes, some of which have been industry firsts, like the inclusion of same-sex and live-in partners in medical insurance and arguably the best paternity leave in the industry at 12 weeks. A vocal advocate for mental health and work-life balance in the creative industry, Aditya has pushed to create an Employee Assistance Program for mental wellbeing for not only employees but also their family members.

Under his leadership, the Group has been awarded Silver at IWEI’s Top Employers 2020 for the LGBT+ community and are four-time Gold winners of the Talent Development Program of the Year at the Campaign South Asia Agency of the Year Awards.

Based in New Delhi, Dhar leads CNN International Commercial’s dynamic advertising sales business for the South Asia region while working closely with senior client and agency stakeholders and CNN International’s global leadership team. His remit includes employing business intelligence and delivering tailor-made cross-platform solutions for brands in the South Asia region. He is also responsible for developing the overall business strategy to maximize potential revenues from the region and aid the team in further raising the profile of CNN International.

The CNN International Ad sales business in South Asia has grown exponentially under Dhar’s leadership and as the global brand partnerships lead in the region, he has spearheaded pioneering initiatives for brands to communicate in the international context with their audiences at scale. Specifically, for India – which is a priority market for CNNIC – Dhar has structured and grown partnerships by leveraging propriety solutions including Bespoke Partnered Content and Native campaigns with key clients and categories across the country.

Dhar has a rich experience of over 19 years in the media and entertainment industry spanning across broadcast, digital, radio and print media. Prior to joining CNN, Dhar has held leadership roles at BBC Worldwide, Viacom Brand Solutions and the Bennet Coleman Group. He holds a degree in Economics from Delhi University and studied Marketing at the Times School of Marketing. Aside from his passion for flying and love for dogs, Abhijeet is an avid biker a golfer and enjoys playing the piano and drums.

Vaibhav has 13 years of diverse experience across the media & ad tech industry. He brings rich insights from the Indian digital advertising market as well as a deep understanding of mobile marketing and ecommerce advertising. He is passionate about solving brands marketing challenges, building businesses ground up, executing growth strategies, and promoting Inclusion & Diversity at the workplace.
In his current role, he leads the endemic business for Flipkart Ads working with brands & sellers to leverage Flipkart’s unique advertising solutions to enable digital impact for business outcomes.

Vartika is Senior Director on the Strategic Solutions team at Talkwalker, the leading Consumer Intelligence Acceleration PlatformTM for brands to drive business impact. Vartika brings with her more than two decades of consumer insights experience from across various agencies, leveraging social listening and consumer intelligence technologies to deliver best-in-class advice to clients. She has also developed bespoke digital intelligence programs used by product innovation, marketing and e-commerce teams, to enable the data-driven strategies of their brands.

As Senior Director (Strategic Solutions), Vartika works at the interface of Talkwalker’s customer success and sales teams to design best-fit solutions for clients and prospects. She draws on her experience working across a diverse set of industries, to help clients maximize access to the business-critical insights that can be harnessed from both third-party and first-party data sources.