India’s Most Influential Marketing Leaders 2024

The year 2024 can be dubbed as a year of many upsets when consumer and market sentiment surprised the industry. Despite this, businesses and brands in India continued their journey of engaging consumers. In the last year, several brands beat the odds to make a relevant impact on the market. These leaders feature in the 2024 edition of BW Top Marketers.

This year, more than 27 per cent of this power list comprises women leaders, indicating a consistent move towards gender parity in India’s C-suite. Women leaders are doing well in a wide array of sectors including FMCG, tech, auto and alco-beverages, in addition to the likes of BFSI and healthcare.

As marketing leaders take on larger mandates, running businesses and P&Ls, the third edition of BW Top Marketers makes a special shout-out to the ‘Grandmasters’. These leaders reiterate that marketing is the growth engine in companies and is ultimately the linchpin of driving business outcomes.

FMCG Marketers Not Missing A Beat
Leaders from FMCG companies take the most positions in BW Top Marketers 2024. The list comprises 27 super marketers from the sector, a large majority representing the food and beverages vertical.

The BW Top Marketers this year include names such as Ashwin Moorthy, Chief Marketing Officer, Godrej Consumer Products; Kanika Kalra, Regional Marketing Director, Health, Reckitt South Asia; Mukta Maheshwari, Chief Marketing Officer, P&G India; Poulomi Roy, Chief Marketing Officer, RSH Global; S. Prasanna Rai, Chief Marketing Officer & Head - Ecommerce Business, Wipro Consumer Care; Shuvadip Banerjee, Chief Digital Marketing Officer, ITC; Gunjit Jain, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Colgate-Palmolive India and Saurabh Jain, Regional Marketing Director, Reckitt Hygiene South Asia. Many of these names have shown consistent work from the last year.

This category also has most of the Grandmasters this year including Harman Dhillon, Executive Director – Beauty & Wellbeing, Hindustan Unilever; Kavita Chaturvedi, Chief Operating Officer, Snacks Business, ITC and Shiva Krishnamurthy, Executive Director – Foods & Refreshment, Hindustan Unilever.

A Tough Food Battle
ITC and HUL have had a formidable year in the food categories but much action was seen across the category itself. Consequently, leaders from this sector count as some of the most influential leaders. The BW Top Marketers from this sector include two from the chocolate sub-sector --- Nitin Saini, Vice President - Marketing, Mondelez India and Zoher Kapuswala, Lead Marketing, Ferrero India Brands (Ferrero Rocher, Nutella & Tic Tac).

The list also features Chandan Mukherji, Director & SVP, Strategy, Marketing & Communication, Nestlé India; Akshali Shah, Executive Director, Parag Milk Foods; Rajiv Dubey, Head - Media, Dabur India; Sriram Padmanabhan, Marketing Director, Danone India; Amit Doshi, Chief Marketing Officer, Britannia Industries; Ganapathy Subramaniam, VP and Head of Marketing, LT Foods and Vineeth Viswambharan, Vice-President and Business Head Food & FMCG, Adani Wilmar.

Indicating the action in the beverages sector, the list also has names such as  Arnab Roy, Vice President & Head of Marketing, India & South Asia, The Coca-Cola Company; Saakshi Verma Menon, Senior Marketing Director - Africa Middle East & South Asia, PepsiCo; Tarun Bhagat    Chief Marketing Officer, PepsiCo India and Tushar Malhotra, Director – Sales & Marketing, Bisleri Internationa apart from Ankit Kapoor, a CMO & Business Leader.

Fierce Finance Fight
More than 10 per cent of the BW Top Marketers 2024 has leaders from the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector. This includes the likes of Apurva Sircar, Head - Marketing, Bandhan Bank; Ashish Mishra, Chief Marketing Officer, ACKO; Darshana Shah, Head - Marketing & CX, Aditya Birla Capital; Jaswinder Sodhi, Head - Customers, Digital & Marketing, HSBC India; Naarayan TV, Chief Marketing Officer, IDFC FIRST Bank; Nimish Agrawal, Executive Vice President & CMO, Niva Bupa; Nipun Kaushal, Chief Marketing Officer & Head - CSR, YES Bank; Puneeth Bekal, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, HDFC Securities; Rahul Talwar, Chief Marketing Officer, Max Life Insurance; Sujatha V Kumar, Head - Marketing, India & South Asia, Visa; Vishal Subharwal, Chief Marketing Officer & Group Head Strategy, HDFC Life and Sai Narayan, Chief Marketing Officer, PolicyBazaar.

Auto - Here To Stay
Arguably, the auto sector is seeing a lull of sorts but for the large part, it has been a very busy year with some big ticket launches and some clutter-breaking work. The category sees among the higher number of Grandmasters including leaders such as Tarun Garg, Whole-time Director & Chief Operating Officer, Hyundai Motor India; Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Business Officer, India BU, Hero MotoCorp and Hardeep Brar, Sr Vice President & Head - Sales & Marketing, Kia India.

The top marketers from this sector include Aniruddha Haldar, Sr. Vice President Marketing, TVS Motor Company; Deepika Warrier, Head - Marketing, Bajaj Auto; Geetika Bisla, Head - Marketing, Hero MotoCorp; Shubhranshu Singh, Chief Marketing Officer - CVBU, Tata Motors and Virat Khullar, AVP & Vertical Head, Marketing, Hyundai Motor India. The sub-category of lubricants, oil and tyres also makes it to the list with leaders such as Ipshita Chowdhury, Chief Marketing Officer, Valvoline Cummins; Rohit Talwar, Vice President - Marketing, Castrol India and Kavitha Ganesan, General Manager – Marketing, TVS Eurogrip.

The Tech Titans 
Tech continues with a high share in the list this year as well with more than 12 marketers representing the sector. Ashwath Swaminathan, the Chief Growth & Marketing Officer of Swiggy leads the list as he drives the tech-enabled food delivery and quick commerce platform’s growth agenda. Ravi Desai, Director - India & Emerging Countries, Prime & Marketing, Amazon returns to the list this year.

Showing a strong representation of women leaders this year as well, the list includes Roshni Das, Vice President - Global Marketing, Intel Corporation, who has now taken on a larger mandate globally; Anuradha Sehgal, Chief Marketing Officer, Coforge; Mayuri Saikia, Director, Marketing, Consumer and Small Business, Dell Technologies India; Sumeet Singh, Group Chief Marketing Officer, Info Edge India and Anjali Gupta, Group Marketing Head, Sify Technologies.

Also in the BW Top Marketers 2024 are Akash Deep Batra, Chief Marketing Officer, HP Inc. India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh; Amit Tiwari, Global Head - Marketing Demand Centre, TCS; Peeyush Dubey, Chief Marketing Officer, Tech Mahindra and Rahul Singh, Head - Marketing, SAP India and Zomato’s Marketing Head, Sahibjeet Singh.

On similar lines, the list also features Raj Rishi Singh, Chief Marketing & Business Officer, MakeMyTrip and Kaustubh Chandra, CMO & Head - Sales Ops & Digital Sales Group, Airtel Business representing travel and telecom sectors.

Consumers Electronics, Durables & Goods Do Well
The BW Top Marketers 2024 saw leaders from the consumer electronics sector including mobile, kitchen appliances and wearable tech shine among their peers. Making it to the list this year are Aditya Babbar, Vice President - Head Product & Marketing, Samsung India; Anuj Sharma, Chief Marketing Officer, Xiaomi India; Utsav Malhotra, Chief Operating Officer, Noise and Anil Gurnani, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, TTK Prestige.

Pragya Bijalwan, Chief Marketing Officer, Crompton is also on the list this year. A good year for consumer durables saw leaders such as Deba Ghoshal, Vice President & Head - Marketing, Voltas; Girish Hingorani, Vice President, Marketing & Corporate Communications, Blue Star and Sunil Narula, Sr Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Panasonic Life Solutions India count among the top marketers.

From the consumer goods sector, the marketing leaders include Sachin Chhabra, Chief Marketing Officer, Relaxo Footwears and Ranjani Krishnaswamy, General Manager, Tanishq Marketing, Titan Company.

Healthcare Rises In The Ranks
The healthcare category saw a significant increase in representation this year. While Anurita Chopra, Head - Marketing, India Sub Continent, Haleon India makes a comeback, this year also saw leaders such as Manoj Gadgil, Business Unit Leader-Essential Health & Skin Health and Vice President Marketing, Kenvue feature in the list along with Ragini Hariharan, Marketing Director, Beauty & Personal Care, Himalaya Wellness and Shamik Banerjee, Chief Marketing Officer & Customer Acquisition, Apollo 24|7.

The Group Custodians
Two marketing leaders who make a return to the 2024 power list hold group mandates, delving into multiple sectors. These include Asha Kharga, Chief Customer and Brand Officer, Mahindra Group and Deepali Naair, Group Chief Marketing Officer, CK Birla Group.

Larger industries such as chemicals and construction too are part of the list represented by leaders like Manish Dubey, Chief Marketing Officer, Pidilite Industries and Ajay Dang, President & Head - Marketing, UltraTech Cement. Dang, like Himanshu Khanna, Chief Marketing Officer, Raymond, is a repeat on the list this year.

New to the list this year are marketing leaders such as Rajat Abbi, VP-Global Marketing & CMO, Schneider Electric Greater India; Vishu Goel, Associate Vice President Sales, Marketing & Commercial, Asian Paints; Ruchira Jaitly, EVP - Marketing, Diageo India and Arvind RP, Chief Marketing Officer, McDonald's India (West & South). This year BW Businessworld also selected young leader Madhur Acharya, Chief Business Officer, Aqualens & VP- Ecommerce, Lenskart from the BW Marketing 40 under Forty list to be part of the top marketers indicating the work that Lenskart has done in the year.

The BW Top 100 Marketers celebrates those marketing leaders who are not only growing their companies and their sectors but whose influence makes a mark on the fraternity and future leaders as well.