Cheil appoints Lowe's Farah Bashir and DigitasLBi's Shekhar Suri

Bashir joins as general manager, planning, while Suri will be general manager, digital.

Cheil India has announced the appointment of Farah Bashir and Shekhar Suri to bolster its digital and strategic planning capabilities. Bashir, who joins as general manager, planning, will report to Sonal Narain, chief strategy officer. Prior to this, she was vice-president, planning, at Lintas.

Suri joins Cheil as general manager, digital, from DigitasLBi where he headed the Delhi Branch. He will report to Sanjeev Jasani, head, digital.

In an official communication by the agency, Jasani and Narain, say, "The year 2016 is going to be bigger and better for us. We are going to be even more aggressive. We will strengthen not just our talent pool, but our internal capabilities as well. Suri and Bashir's proven track record and expertise will further amplify and accelerate growth for us. We are excited to have them on board and partner us in scripting Cheil's growth story in 2016."

Suri comes with over 13 years of experience in management and leadership in India, Sri Lanka, and Africa. He has worked across categories such as consumer durables, banking, telecommunications and advertising. He has helped set up brown field projects and led the business development and marketing strategy globally for key clients such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Aircel, and Reckit Benkiser. Suri is a post-graduate in International Business. He has also been associated with companies such as LG Electronics, Bharti Telesoft and Tech Mahindra in the past.

Bashir has over 12 years of experience across geographies including India, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Brazil, where she has worked as a journalist, research analyst, and marketing professional before moving to the planning side of advertising. She has been associated with DDB Mudra, Unilever Asia, Quantum Market Research and Reuters in the past.

Bashir has worked on various brands such as, Wills Lifestyle, OLX, Hindustan Times, Volini, Revital, Reckitt Benckiser, NDTV, Hindustan Times, MTS, Microsoft, Singapore Health Promotion Board (HPB), Singtel, Zopper, Twinings, Cisco, GPI and Dabur.

Cheil India serves as the regional headquarters for the Cheil Worldwide (headquartered in Seoul) in South-West Asia. Cheil Worldwide operates in 40 countries, with over 5,000 employees. The agency and its affiliates including McKinney, Beattie McGuiness Bungay, The Barbarian Group, Iris Worldwide and Bravo Asia claim to have won major international awards including the Cannes Lions, CLIOs, and Spikes.