Anupriya Acharya: Advertising’s Leading Lady

Being among the top leaders in the advertising and media industry in India was nothing new for Anupriya Acharya, who was named the CEO of Publicis Groupe South Asia in December 2019. In her 25 years in advertising, Acharya was at the helm of several media agencies from GroupM to Aegis Media, including a regional mandate in Singapore. 

When Acharya began her journey with Publicis Groupe in 2013, she was given the charge of one of the media agencies in the group, ZenithOptimedia as its Group CEO. As the advertising world came under pressure, Acharya’s role saw an important change with the additional mandate of all Publicis Media operations in India including media agency Starcom and digital brand Performics. Under her leadership, Publicis Media had recorded one of the strongest growth phases in India, and India became one of the top performing markets for the company globally.

During his India visit in August 2019, Steve King, Groupe COO & Publicis Media Global CEO pointed out that Publicis Media had already made its place in the top three players in India. In 2019, with over 1,300 in headcount, Publicis Media had achieved leadership position in aspects of the business such as digital.

Acharya had informed then that Publicis Media held 70 per cent of the performance market share in the country. Much of this can be attributed to the two local acquisitions, Convonix and Resultrix, which were eventually aligned under Performics in 2019.

Publicis Media had become data driven at its core. This led it to win businesses from several sectors in its client roster. For instance, in the cab hailing segment, Ola and Uber, or Hotstar and Zee5 in the OTT video sector are among its clients. Similarly, multiple brands from other sectors are also in the list. Publicis Media did not waste the opportunity of building consumer knowledge and insights gained from working with multiple brands within the same sector. The resulting rise of the media side of the business led the Groupe to create a new position of a CEO for all of Publicis Groupe’s agencies in India. Acharya was handed this mandate in December 2019. 

This development made her one among the two holding company CEOs in India and among the most prominent leaders in advertising. This is also one of the most challenging roles for Acharya yet, as this also includes a direct oversee of Groupe creative agencies that include names such as Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, among others. 

Under Achaya’s leadership, Publicis Media had recorded one of the strongest growth phases in India, and India became one of the top performing markets for the company globally