GroupM reshuffles top management; Prasanth Kumar named COO

GroupM South Asia announced a restructuring in its leadership to continue delivering the advantages of global operations and learnings with local expertise and sharp market insights.

Effective immediately, Prasanth Kumar (PK) is named Chief Operating Officer, South Asia, and Tushar Vyas is named President Growth and Transformation, South Asia, each brand-new roles in the organization. In addition, Parthasarathy Mandayam (Maps) is named Mindshare’s CEO for South Asia and Amin Lakhani is named Mindshare’s Chief Operating Officer in South Asia.

 As Chief Operating Officer, PK will be responsible for operational excellence, i.e. ensuring client expectations are reliably met by continuously improving processes ensuring clients are successful today. He will guide and lead the teams across OpCos, Trading and Specialised Units to execute the same more consistently and reliably to drive client delight while fortifying partnerships.

Most recently as Mindshare’s CEO, PK oversaw Mindshare’s rapid expansion in the market, bringing it to a market-leading position and winning numerous global awards. During his tenure, he developed a record for the most number of new business wins by a single market and created a tradition of external accolades, including a Glass Lion at Cannes, a Grand Prix at WARC and an average of over 250 external awards per year. Mindshare India was also recognized globally as number 2 in the Gunn report. Prior to Mindshare, he led the GroupM Central Trading Group across South Asia and championed exciting partnerships in digital and traditional media.

PK, an MBA graduate from Madras University in his two decades plus years’ experience have always driven innovative initiatives and shaped industry best practices. He loves to play Tennis and Badminton as well as enjoys music. He will continue to be based out of Mumbai.

Tushar Vyas will take over the role of President Growth and Transformation. In his new role, Tushar will drive digital transformation and focus on building GroupM wide capability focusing on Digital, Data, Analytics, and Content, and working across GroupM to ensure our clients are ahead of the curve for tomorrow.

Before taking over his current role of the Chief Strategy Officer at GroupM, Tushar launched the Digital Media Agency business unit (Interaction) for GroupM India and built a 600+ member team by expanding services in areas like content, search, programmatic buying, mobile, digital activation, social insight and digital analytics. Today, GroupM’s digital media practice is the largest digital media solution provider with more than 500+ active clients. Under his leadership, the digital practice was a regular at all the major digital and media awards. He was also part of SureWaves start-up team focused on Media technology.

Also Read: India expected to contribute $1.35B of growth: GroupM’S 2019 AD Forecast

Tushar has over 20 years of experience in Digital, Media, Advertising and Technology and is a Chevening Rolls-Royce Fellow (Innovation, Science and Leadership). He loves to spend his time with his family and is a Bollywood movie buff. He will continue to be based out of Mumbai.

Speaking on the new appointments, Sam Singh, CEO, GroupM South Asia said, “PK and Tushar are passionate leaders with high integrity and proven ability to envision and deliver successful outcomes in a challenging environment. As we become a more data-centric organization, there is a need to drive transformation and build future capabilities with a focus on Digital, Data, Analytics, and Content. We must work across GroupM to drive organizational transformation and operational excellence. The new team structure is another step in this direction.”

He added, “I am also sad to announce that Lakshmi Narasimhan our Chief Growth Officer for GroupM South Asia has decided to step down from his current role effective January 31, 2019, to pursue personal interests. I thank him for his contributions over the years and wish him all the best. We will miss him as we continue to build upon his hard work and passion. Lakshmi was instrumental in building our strong trading community with solid practices”.

Parthasarathy Mandayam (Maps) will take over the role of Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Mindshare, South Asia effective February 1, 2019. Maps takes on the role from PK, who will be moving to his new role within GroupM.

Maps has spent 10+ years with Mindshare in various leadership roles – Data, Insights, Analytics, Strategy, Client Leadership and Business Unit leadership. He will report into Sam Singh, CEO GroupM, South Asia, Prasanth Kumar – COO – GroupM South Asia and Amrita Randhawa, CEO Mindshare Asia Pacific.

Maps, an alumnus of BITS Pilani & IIM Calcutta has over two decades of experience in the advertising & communications industry, all within the WPP Group. Maps has vast experience in running offices, driving strategy and product. In his previous roles, he led the North and South offices of Mindshare and therefore comes with in-depth experience of leading teams and learning across categories. In his recent role as President Product, Digital and Strategy, he led the teams driving strategic initiatives and creating bespoke tools that delivered client delight. He nurtured the diverse communities and many of the solutions for clients that got recognised at global forums like icom. Maps also enjoys playing Tennis and loves traveling especially to wildlife sanctuaries.

We constantly leverage our expertise to deliver greater value and focusing on the future, so clients continue to remain ahead of the curve with the best talent, teams, and technology. We are also adding a new role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Mindshare in South Asia reporting into CEO Mindshare South Asia.

Going forward, Amin Lakhani will take on the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Mindshare South Asia.

Amin has over 20 years’ experience in various roles in Mindshare and GroupM and is currently leading Client leadership at Mindshare.

In his previous role as President - Client leadership, he has been instrumental in driving the best practices and strengthening our offering to clients. He successfully led the integration of digital business of Unilever in India. And in his earlier avatar as Head of Fulcrum, he raised the bar of Unilever India team by winning various global accolades internally and externally to become one of the best teams globally. Amin has over 20+ years’ experience in various roles in Mindshare and GroupM. He has extensive cross-functional experience in Media, Marketing- Product Management, leading teams and extensive experience working with various clients like Pepsi, GSK, ICICI, ONIDA, Castrol, HSBC, Kellogg amongst others.

He enjoys running and is a regular at marathons. He will continue to be based out of Mumbai.

Talking on the latest developments, Prasanth Kumar, the new GroupM COO, said, “Our industry is an ever-mutating one, so we have to also continue to evolve and adapt. With Maps and Amin now at the helm of Mindshare, we have leaders with a proven track record of consistently achieving clients’ business goals. They will continue cultivating client relationships at the highest level and delivering great results.”

With investment in data, technology, and diverse talent, GroupM aims to shape the future and transform business challenges into opportunities for clients.