Board Member Category: Speaker 2023
Sumeet Singh
Meet Sumeet Singh, the face of Marketing at Info Edge. She is credited for contributing in shaping Info Edge into one of the most successful dotcom companies in India, through the marketing function of brand building, corporate communications, digital media, and consumer research for Naukri.com, Naukrigulf.com, Jeevansathi, Shiksha.com, and 99acres.com.
In her years with Info Edge, Sumeet has been the architect of several effective campaigns including the high-recall ‘Hari Sadu’ ad for Naukri.com, the recent ‘Be Found’ campaign for Jeevansathi, amongst others. She has also been instrumental in driving over 150 alliances in association with leading publications across the country, paving ways for showcasing Info Edge as a dynamic brand.
She strongly believes in putting the customer first which is reflected in all her efforts of making InfoEdge a consumer focussed brand, as she says, “Our services relate with the people, making us a potential partner in their most important decisions; be it finding a job, getting married or settling down in a dream home.”
Sumeet has 19 years of experience in marketing, brand management and public relations. A management graduate from Pune University, she is a business strategist, speaker, and the Founder Executive Director of The Indus Entrepreneurs, Delhi. She has also served as the Executive Director of the Indian Venture Capital Association and served on the IT advisory councils of 6 states.
She started her career with NIIT Ltd.
PRASAD SHEJALE
Prasad Shejale, Founder & CEO, of Logicserve Digital. He is a voracious reader and a keen learner in the field of Digital Marketing and technologies. He founded Logicserve Digital which is one of the largest digital marketing companies in India.
PRABHVIR SAHMEY
Prabhvir is a highly experienced business leader with more than 20 years of digital advertising & technology experience. He currently serves as Senior Director, Samsung Ads India, a leading provider of Advanced TV advertising solutions.
As a founding executive of Samsung Ads India, Prabh has been instrumental in setting up the Indian arm of the business. Armed with a deep understanding of ad tech, media and viewership preferences Prabh is tasked with driving commercial expansion and adoption of CTV in the country. Prior to Samsung Ads Prabh pioneered programmatic advertising at Google, headed up Search and Mobile at Mindshare and worked at multiple technology driven media solution companies.
BHARAT KHATRI
Bharat Khatri is the Chief Digital Officer, APAC at Omnicom Media Group, one of the world’s leading global media agency networks, where he leads digital marketing operations, productization, commercials and governance efforts for the network in this region. With a future-forward and holistic approach to digital marketing, he spotlights his focus on leveraging technology to drive efficiency and creativity in digital marketing at scale.
A strategic digital marketer with more than a decade of agile experience in digital and sales across the EMENA & APAC markets, Bharat is a young thought leader with a knack for driving efficiency and creativity at scale in his projects. He comes with strong business acumen to leverage data, technology, and real actionable insights into lucrative solutions for brands. Armed with end-to-end expertise in delivering campaigns with programmatic stack development, omnichannel activation, performance marketing, and media commerce, Bharat loves accelerating the growth story of clients and partners.
Before joining the Omnicom Media Group, Bharat was leading operations for Xaxis in India as the Country Head, where he was responsible for managing P&L for the biggest agency programmatic desk in the country, growing the business exponentially over the past five years, fostering partnerships with leading technology, media and measurement players to drive a digital-first strategy and mentoring the next generation of digital leaders.
He started his career with Serco as an Account Coordinator and later on moved to Wipro and Exponential, diversifying his portfolio to media planning, buying, P&L Management, research and development.
A true advocate for digital transformation and passionate about applications of artificial intelligence that enables accurate digital planning across all addressable channels, Bharat loves helping brands transform the marketing message into a welcome occurrence rather than an unwanted intrusion with his data-driven approach.
A complete foodie at heart, Bharat enjoys cooking in his past time. Digital detox and good food make his weekends perfect. As an avid mountaineer, he sees practical parallels between what it takes to be on an expedition and being in the media advertising industry. The determination, perseverance and out-of-the-box thinking required to take on mountaineering fuels him to find purpose in work and life.
ROSHAN ABBAS
Roshan Abbas got on stage when he was 4 years old, and never stepped away from the spotlight. He is an entrepreneur, author, film & theatre director, TV and radio host, podcaster, producer, angel investor but most of all, a storyteller. He now attempts to shine the spotlight and provide a platform to others by connecting people to opportunities. A stalwart in the Indian media industry, he has always been ahead of the curve – pioneering innovation across platforms and mediums.
Roshan founded and led Encompass (now VMLY&R COMMERCE ENCOMPASS) as Managing Director into becoming India’s largest, most awarded experiential marketing agency . He was an initial investor in and continues to be a mentor-partner at The Glitch, now India’s leading creative agency, and at Chtrbox (acquired by Qyou Media), India’s forerunner in influencer marketing. As an angel investor at GSF, he has made strategic investments in over 40 startups with successful exits in Little Eye Labs to Facebook,Slintel sold to Sixth Sense, Practo etc.
Roshan has won seven national-level awards for TV and radio.Through RAP, his production house, he produces and curates content and events driven by great writers. Roshan co-founded Kommune – a creator collective that believes every story deserves a stage. He helped conceptualise Spokenfest, Asia’s largest spoken word festival which brings together performers from across the world for storytelling through any medium. He is currently the President of EEMA, the consortium of event management and entertainment company leaders of the country.
Roshan has channelled the magic of stories to create experiences, build businesses, change mindsets, and invoke curiosity. Roshan continues to inspire by sharing his life lessons with anyone looking to discover a unique voice! To surmise Roshan Abbas in a phrase, as he puts it himself, he is a Storyteller and a Story-Seller.
ARCHANA AGGARWAL
Archana Aggarwal has 27+ years of experience and is an accomplished media professional. Prior to Airtel, she was the Country Media Manager at P&G and has done stints with leading agencies like Group M & McCann-Erickson across key clients like HUL, Kellogg’s, Bajaj Auto, Coca-Cola and many more. She helped launch brands like Airtel 4G, Olay & Pampers to name a few in India. Her work on Gillette & Whisper won international accolades at Cannes & Festival of Media. She heads the media committee at ISA and is also an active member at BARC’s Tech Com.
GAZAL BAJAJ
LAVIN PUNJABI
Lavin Punjabi is an ad tech entrepreneur dedicated to restoring trust between users and digital ads through privacy-first technology. With a proven track record in developing user-centric ad tech products, Lavin has consistently driven innovation and added substantial value to the industry. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Affinity, a company often referred to as the ‘Columbus of New Media,’ Lavin spearheads a portfolio of ad network and SaaS businesses. The ad networks focus on branding and performance solutions for advertisers across unique formats and placements (mCanvas, VEVE, SitePlug and YieldSolutions). The SaaS businesses include AdOpsOne, NucleusLinks and Opinary, the latter of which was acquired in 2023. These ventures operate on a global scale, spanning the US, UK, Europe, India, Indonesia, and China. Lavin’s profound involvement in the ad tech industry since 2004, marked by his pioneering of privacy-first technology and product-led impact on the future of digital advertising, has established him as a recognized industry expert.
VINAY SINGH
Vinay Singh is the Founding Partner at Fireside Ventures, which is the hottest name in the “Direct to Consumer” Startup segment. Anchored by a slew of Marquee investors, Fireside manages a 150million dollar corpus. Some of the biggest names that they support include mamaearth, yogabar, Bombay shaving co. boat lifestyle and manay more
Vinay has over 7 years at Hindustan Unilever, McKinsey and Bankbazaar.com across sales and marketing. He has a unique perspective on the intersection between consumer brands and technology. He has also been an entrepreneur, as the founder and CEO of Stepni.com, which was acquired by Quikr.
- To begin with, tell us a little bit about the birth of Fireside venture, how you came to be involved?
- Direct to Consumer – a buzzword, the latest and most preferred business strategy. Vinay, you’ve been on the forefront of encouraging some of the best brands in this space, both through venture capital and mentorship. Tell me, what categories do you feel do well in this kind of model?
- What are some of the challenges associated with D2C model?
Since we have so many traditional brands also taking this route, what are some of the pitfalls they should be wary of?
Follow-up Q – As a startup entrepreneur launching a product on this model, what are some of things I should NOT be doing? - What I have gathered from what we spoke so far is that in-depth knowledge of the consumer is the key to D2C. How big is the dependence on first party data here? How much analytics is involved?
- Another thing we see with D2C brands is Sales First – Brand laterapproach and partiality towards ROAS or lower funnel metrics. What are your thoughts here?
- D2C models were catapulted onto the spotlight during the lockdown. But in a post covid world, do you see consumer behaviour changing?
- On the same lines, what is the future of Retail going to look like?
- D2C brands Aggregator brands carrying products, and product manufacturers selling products directly, are advertising in the SAME SPACES , and kind of competing with themselves in some ways. Is this sustainable?
- So one of the ways brands are actually interacting with consumers is through social media, and over the last 2 years it has become so very easy to talk to brands. Do you see this dependence on social channels as a challenge?
- What are some of the considerations new age brands need to keep in mind when approaching new partners and new media channels?
