GroupM ropes in Atique Kazi to head Xaxis India

Atique joins GroupM from Yahoo!. At GroupM he will report to Prasant Kumar and Tushar Vyas.

GroupM has appointed Atique Kazi as director of Xaxis, India.

He will report to Prasant Kumar, head of trading and Tushar Vyas, head of digital at GroupM India.

Kazi moves in from Yahoo!, which he had joined in June, 2010 as the head of media account management, expansion markets, EMEA. At Yahoo, he held the position of head of planning, sales strategy & Y! Studio EMEA, emerging markets, and was based in London.

Kumar says, "Atique brings with him a decade of experience traversing sales, strategy, partnerships and new media technologies. His international experience coupled with his passion for digital and brands will help us scale Xaxis and make it a truly new age company."

Talking about his new role, Kazi says, "I look forward to an exciting and enriching career at Xaxis. My priority is to leverage my International exposure and digital experience to enhance GroupM's vision. I would like to have each and every client to see a marked increase in the quality of work they receive from Xaxis and help them lead in their field."

Kazi started his career with Ideasnyou.com in 2001, after six months of which he moved on to C-Tech and stayed with the company for one-and-a-half-years. He quit the company to join 3 Hutchison Whampoa in January 2003 and spent more than two years there before he moved to JVC - Oasis Enterprises in April 2005.

In September 2006, he joined The Times of India as assistant manager, online partnerships and then moved to The Economist, where he worked as regional online manager, Middle East Africa.