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Keep up with all the key people movements in the brand marketing ecosystem in Storyboard18’s CXO Moves. Here’s a round-up of the executives who are in, out, and in-between in the past two weeks.

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Rajneet Kohli

Previous: President and Chief Business Officer, Domino's India

Present: Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Britannia Industries

Britannia Industries has appointed Rajneet Kohli as the executive director and chief executive officer, effective from September 26. Kohli's appointment to a newly created position of CEO at Britannia, comes at a time when the industry is grappling with margin concerns amid soaring inflation. Kohli, who has more than two decades of experience, has worked with Asian Paints and The Coca-Cola Company, in the past. He will report to Varun Berry, who was elevated to the executive vice-chairman and managing director of the foods major.

Vishal Jacob

Previous: Vice President, Wavemaker India

Present: Chief Transformation Officer and Chief Digital Officer, Wavemaker

GroupM-owned Wavemaker has designated Vishal Jacob as the chief transformation officer. Along with this new position, he will also continue to hold the position of the chief digital officer. In this extended role, Jacob will work with office heads and business leads to structure and create diverse skill sets within business teams to manage current and future business requirements. He will also work along with practice leads to break silos and create more cross functional teams to deliver unified solutions to clients, which is one of Wavemaker’s key focus areas. Further, Jacob will also work on strengthening existing capabilities beyond digital and incubating new ones. In his previous stints, Jacob has worked with Mindshare and Maxus. 

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Burzin Mehta

Previous: National Creative Director, Publicis Worldwide

Present: Chief Creative Officer, Gozoop Group

Independent marketing group Gozoop Group appointed Burzin Mehta as the chief creative officer. Mehta will partner with Samrat Bedi, the chief executive officer to focus on building brands of the future. Mehta, who has more than two decades of experience has worked across Ogilvy, Raka Advertising, DDB Mudra Group, Abans Group Sri Lanka and Indigo Consulting. 

Priya Gurnani and Arvind Menon

Previous: Senior Creative Directors, BBH India

Present: Executive Creative Directors, BBH India

BBH India, which is a part of Publicis Groupe, has promoted Priya Gurnani and Arvind Menon to executive creative directors. Gurnani, who has more than a decade’s experience, has worked across Ogilvy & Mather, Contract Advertising, Leo Burnett, McCann Worldgroup, Amber Communications, Qrious Digital Marketing and Publicis. Menon has worked with PHD Worldwide and FoxyMoron, in the past. 

Two weeks ago, BBH India elevated Radhika Burman to VP, Head Delhi. In her new role, Burman would be responsible for current clients, people, and new business performance in Delhi. Along with that, she will drive strategic thinking across clients.

Abhishek Sen

Previous: Senior Vice President - Integrated Campaigns, Cheil India 

Present: Not known

Abhishek Sen has stepped down from his position as the senior vice president of integrated campaigns at Cheil India. At Cheil India, he led the 360 integrated campaigns across ATL (Above the Line), BTL (Below the Line), digital, social, influencer, publishers, events, e-commerce and community marketing for Samsung India's MX portfolio across smartphones, computing, wearables and community marketing. Sen has more than two decades of experience, and he has worked with agencies such as Rediffusion Y&R, Dentsu, Ogilvy & Mather and DDB. In May, Cheil India had appointed Umesh Bopche as the chief executive officer for its digital agency Experience Commerce.

Sharad Sharma

Present: Chief Business Officer, Boddess Beauty

Multi-brand beauty and tech retailer Boddess Beauty has appointed Sharad Sharma as the chief business officer. In this role, Sharma will be responsible for building and expanding the brand across online and omni channel and hyper-local models across the nation. Sharma, who has 25 years of experience in e-commerce, retail, business consulting and digital marketing, will play a key role in the expansion of the brand in tier 2 and tier 3 markets. Sharma held leadership roles in companies such as Havells, Welspun, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) and Times Internet.

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Amlan Pati

Previous: Head E-Commerce, D2C and Digital Marketing, CavinKare

Present: Senior Professional - Product Marketing (IM Biz), Samsung Electronics

Samsung Electronics has appointed Amlan Pati to the position of a senior professional - product marketing. As he announced his new position at Samsung Electronics, he added, “Will be working on the flagship smartphones product range.” Pati, who has 10 years of experience has worked across Panasonic India, realme, etc. At CavinKare, Pati was instrumental in launching the D2C business and the first D2C brand Buds and Berries. 

Renu Somani

Previous: Executive Creative Director, Thought Blurb Communications

Present: National Creative Director, Thought Blurb Communications

Full-service advertising and design agency Thought Blurb Communications has elevated Renu Somani to the position of a national creative director. Somani, who has two decades of experience has worked with McCann Erickson and Saatchi & Saatchi in the past. Somani now takes charge of managing the creative product of the company that has a presence in Mumbai and Kochi. She will be overseeing a diverse team of creative talent in these cities, helping in the development of brands across the country and also in planning the creative strategy for new clients here on.

Asheesh Malhotra

Previous: Executive Vice President, Branch head, Dentsu Aegis Network

Present: Executive Director, NEXT

NEXT by Rediffusion, an agency with focus on startups, fintech, e-commerce, edtech, and eHealth, has appointed Asheesh Malhotra as the executive director. Malhotra, who has 25 years of experience in the advertising industry, has worked with Lowe Lintas, Ogilvy & Mather and Bates CHI&Partners. 

Mausami Prasad

Previous: Executive Vice President, Kantar

Present: National Head - Strategy & Insights, Mindshare 

Mindshare has appointed Mausami Prasad as the national head - strategy and insights. In her new role, Prasad will be responsible for contributing to Mindshare’s ‘good growth’ journey by creating exclusive strategies for clients. Prasad, who has more than two decades of experience, has worked across Indica Research, IMRB International, Pantaloon Retail India Ltd and Colgate Palmolive India Ltd etc. At Kantar, Prasad developed client relationships for a global account, consulted client stakeholders and provided consumer insights across the entire brand portfolio of clients. Few days ago, Mindshare strengthened its leadership team by appointing Sam Thomas as head – performance and product, Rehan Ali as Partner – Performance (North and East), Atishay Agrawal as senior director – performance (South), and Pratishtha Dehariya as partner – performance (West).

Rakesh Varma and Abhay Godbole

Present: Vice President & Executive Business Director; Vice President & Client Servicing Director, Wunderman Thompson

Wunderman Thompson has appointed Rakesh Varma and Abhay Godbole. Varma has over 15 years of advertising experience and has been associated with leading brands like Hotstar, Radio City, FBB, Gelusil and Tata AIA, amongst others. Godbole, who has previously worked with Wunderman Thompson Mumbai, during his previous stint with the agency, was instrumental in leading the much lauded ‘Mutual Funds Sahi Hai’ for AMFI. He has close to two decades of experience in marketing communications working across FMCG, Automobile and BFSI. Varma and Godbole will report to Anurag Tandon, managing partner, Wunderman Thompson Mumbai.

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Bhawana Sharma

Previous: Digital Marketing Lead, realme India 

Present: Head of Digital Marketing, CavinKare

FMCG company CavinKare has roped in Bhawana Sharma as the head of digital marketing. Sharma, who has more than a decade’s experience, has worked with HCL Technologies, Cheil India and Hakuhodo, in the past. 

Manesh Mahatme

Previous: Director & Head of WhatsApp Pay, WhatsApp

Present: Director of Product, E-Commerce, Amazon

Manesh Mahatme, who served as the director and head of WhatsApp Pay at the Meta-owned instant messaging platform, has joined Amazon as the director of product for the e-commerce division. As per a media report, his exit comes at a time when WhatsApp is seeking to ramp up its payments service and compete with established brands like Alphabet Inc's Google Pay, Ant Group-backed Paytm and Walmart's PhonePe. Mahatme, who has more than 10 years of experience has worked with Citibank, Mashreqbank and Airtel, in the past. 

Pallavi Mohan

Previous: General Manager, DLF Limited

Present: Head of Marketing and Communications, Elan Group

Real estate company Elan Group has appointed Pallavi Mohan as the head of marketing and communications. Mohan, who has an experience of more than two decades, has worked with Philips Lighting, Britannia Industries Limited, Target, Cafe Coffee Day, Papa John’s International, Royal Orchids Hotel and Samsung Electronics. Mohan has worked across functions like social/digital marketing, sales, business operations, strategic retail, corporate communication, public relations and corporate social responsibility. 

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Girish Menon

Previous: Partner, KPMG India

Present: Chief Strategy Officer, JetSynthesys

Digital entertainment and technology company JetSynthesys strengthened its leadership team through the appointment of Girish Menon. The other appointments are Pushan Puri and Sheetal Bapat who joined as chief technology officer and head of social impact initiatives. Menon, who has 25 years of experience, has worked with KPMG, Balaji Telefilms and Grant Thornton India, in the past. Online music education platform Artium Academy entered into a strategic partnership with Global Music Junction — the digital entertainment subsidiary of JetSynthesys and Warner Music India. This is aimed at helping these entities to identify, nurture and scale aspiring talents at the Academy while collectively building on content-creation, artist management, revenue generation, digital monetisation, branding, and sponsorships. In June, it was announced that JetSynthesys is in talks to go public.

Compiled by Kashmeera Sambamurthy

CXO Moves: Britannia gets a CEO; Execs in at Gozoop, Samsung, realme, Rediffusion, Mindshare, CavinKare, JetSynthesys

Video game streamer and content creator Magsplay aka Mansi Gupta spent around 6-7 hours playing games such as PUBG religiously during lockdown and eventually decided to start her own channel which is a mix of video gaming and lifestyle content. Magsplay has partnered with big brands such as Dell, Realme, fintech brands and international gaming publishers.

“Recently, there has been a lot of interest from brands towards female gamers and they want female representation in their marketing campaigns. However, 10-20 percent of audiences still have bias towards women playing games,” she tells Storyboard18.

Gupta is among top female gamers in India along with streamers such as Monika “Sherlock” Jeph, Shagufta “Xyaa” Iqbal (streamer and female game developer), Shazia Ayub (Mysterious YT), Pooja Khatri and Saloni Panwar (popularly known as Meow16k).

Due to the massive surge of female gamers in recent years which is further accentuated by Covid-19 pandemic, women are rapidly straddling multiple roles in the online gaming industry such as gamers, streamers, game creators, or entrepreneurs, making it a more diverse and inclusive ecosystem.

According to the report launched by EY in 2022, the number of women gamers grew by 18 percent in 2021 and is expected to grow by 20 percent by the end of 2022.

“Women are increasingly entering the gaming industry by engaging in genres like real money skill-based games, esports and casual games. While there is a prominent rise of women player participation major esports tournaments all over the world, other genres like RMG (real money gaming) also gave the sector an ensemble of pro-players like Muskan Sethi, Nikita Luther and many more who have been representing India at a global stage,” says Roland Landers, CEO of All India Gaming Federation (AIGF).

Upsurge in demand

Sooraj Balakrishnan, head of marketing, Acer, tells Storyboard18 that over the last two years, they have seen many women spending more time gaming due to work from home (WFH) and hybrid work. They initially start on mobile phones and then transition from mobiles to PCs when they want to take gaming more seriously.

“The average spends by women consumers when it comes to gaming laptops is between Rs 80,000 to 1 lakh when they want to take gaming more seriously. There is also discretionary income and easy financing to make this kind of purchase less of a burden. We have also seen dual purpose usage of gaming laptops at a more entry point of Rs 55,000 where they use it for college and other use while gaming at leisure time,” he notes.

Acer organised an exclusive tournament for women in its flagship Predator Gaming League tournament last year.

Various gaming publishers, video gaming streaming and esports platforms have also witnessed steady surge in women gamers.

Rohit Raj, Co-Founder, COO, EsportsXO, says that the ratio of male to female gamers was less; however, this has been changing, and the ratio is now 20 percent.

“In order to elevate the status of women gamers in our vast community, EsportsXO is working on interesting IPs that will revolve around and celebrate female gaming in India,” he adds.

Live community gaming platform Tamasha Live said that it has more than 1,600 female game hosts and more than three lakhs female gamers on its platform who mostly play casual board games (Ludo), and community games (Tambola). More than 50 percent active hosts are female but around 30 percent gamers are female with the latter outperforming male hosts in building and engaging communities on the platform.

“We currently don't have ways to let anyone monetise through brand collaborators on the platform but we are planning to build tools in the future where women creators can host branded tournaments and monetise through brand collaborators. They would also be able to stream their tournaments on YouTube or any other social platform,” says Saurabh Gupta, co-founder and CEO, Tamasha Live.

Currently at the beta stage, social networking platform for esports fans and gamers Qlan already has 9 percent of its total gamer base as women.

“We’ve invested a substantial time to break down and understand women gamers from the core. The first step will be to build a community of women gamers on Qlan, helping expose them to a larger spectrum of opportunities on Qlan, ensure higher discovery of these women gamers and empower them to pave their own path in the gaming and esports industry,” says Sagar Nair, co-founder &amp; CEO, Qlan, The Gamer's Social Network.

Brand collaborations

With high engagement, brands are following the female gamers as well.

Pranav Panpalia, founder of influencer marketing agency OpraahFx, says that on an average, a leading female gamer observes about 8-14 percent of engagement on their YouTube videos.

“Roughly, a female gamer with about over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube would charge about Rs 3-5 lakh for an integrated video. Female gamers endorse brands from gaming to tech, consumer goods to fast food, finance to personal care. People have a stereotype that a female gamer would sell female-specific products, but no. The majority of their followers are male and also have a fair ratio of females. Hence women gamers prefer to promote brands and products for both,” he adds.

OpraahFx is working with a few aspiring gamers and help them with game training, content strategy, and partnership with larger gamers and brands.

Rohit Agarwal, founder and director, Alpha Zegus, a marketing agency specialising in the domains of gaming and lifestyle, shares that on Instagram, women gamers are actually driving equal or more engagement than their male counterparts, since they bring a perfect mix of gaming and lifestyle communication to the content they put out.

“Not only are women gamers coming on par with male gamers in terms of endemic brands, but a lot of non-endemic brands (such as L’Oreal, Maybelline, Tinder, etc.) are seeing the value of collaborating with women gamers, and are betting big on them,” he notes.

Key challenges

Even though the Indian esports landscape is growing exponentially, there seems to be a lack of a regulatory framework to address complaints of harassment and misconduct faced by female gamers. While platforms claim that they do have in-built technology to prevent any such occurrences they can suspend and/or disqualify the accused player’s account or user content or restrict their participation in such events if the issues are raised on the platforms.

“Therefore, in the absence of any specific provisions or guidelines, these gaming platforms fall under the ambit of Internet Intermediaries and Digital Media platforms, thereby required to comply with the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, thereby appointing a grievance officer to address the complaints of the users in specific manner and timeline,” says Santosh Vikram Singh, partner - IP and Sports Law, Fox Mandal &amp; Associates. He adds, “Additionally, the other viable remedy for the victims is to initiate a criminal complaint against the perpetrator under the Information Technology Act 2000 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860.”

REALME