Dentsu India elevates Divya Karani to lead Media as CEO

Kartik Iyer promoted to India COO.

Dentsu International, the global media and marketing communications conglomerate, has announced key leadership changes in India as part of its global organisational redesign. Kartik Iyer, erstwhile president - Media Brands and Amplifi, will now join the network’s market leadership team as its chief operating officer (COO). He will continue to report into Anand Bhadkamkar and will be instrumental in driving the implementation of dentsu’s new business model within the country. Kartik will help navigate dentsu’s global transformation program with a focus on collaborating with leaders and client teams across businesses in the market to change how the network works and inculcate the culture of operational excellence. He will engage with regional teams, global teams, and all other network brands to ensure that the ongoing transformation program and the new business model is efficiently adopted and effectively addresses local business requirements.

The network has also appointed Divya Karani, CEO at dentsu X India, as the chief executive officer (CEO) for Media, South Asia. Here, Media includes the agencies dentsu X, Carat, iProspect and Posterscope. In this additional role, Divya will be responsible for driving the global Media strategy and delivery in South Asia, ensuring its alignment and relevance to the market. Divya will continue to report into Anand Bhadkamkar.

Commenting on their latest roles, Anand said, “Dentsu is committed to delivering the best to its clients and Kartik and Divya are veterans in what they do. Kartik is recognised industry-wide for his media expertise while Divya is one of our finest from the industry. Her strength lies in delivering first-class, client-centric results and I am confident that their expertise and experience will only help accelerate the effectiveness, purpose, and performance offered to our clients.”

Haresh Nayak will continue to serve as COO for dentsu Media in India in addition to his other current roles as president, Posterscope Asia Pacific and MD, Posterscope India, while Rubeena Singh is now in-charge of the freshly rebranded iProspect. For the record, the agency recently witnessed the merger of Vizeum and iProspect into one to bring together the former’s media strategy and planning, storytelling, and brand-building capabilities with the latter's digital expertise, audience knowledge, and performance mindset. Anita Kotwani will continue to lead the Carat brand for India.