GroupM India makes senior level appointments

GroupM India, the media investment group of WPP, has announced the appointment of Sidharth Parashar as president - investments and pricing, GroupM India and Ashwin Padmanabhan as president – partnerships and trading, GroupM India. As part of this elevation, both Sidharth and Ashwin will join the GroupM Executive Committee.

Prasanth Kumar, CEO of GroupM South Asia said, “The elevation of both Sidharth and Ashwin is a testament of GroupM’s continued investment in its talent which has helped build a strong leadership pipeline, creating leaders to take our business into the future. In this ever-evolving integrated media ecosystem, we understand the importance of having leaders across key client focus areas like media investments and trading. Both Sidharth and Ashwin are astute leaders and I am confident that they will continue to drive client delight and expand GroupM’s reach across platforms.”

Sidharth and Ashwin have been leading GroupM’s pricing-investment and partnerships-trading practices over the years and they will take over their respective new roles effective November 2019.

Sidharth has been with GroupM for over 15 years. He commenced his journey as the Agency Buying Head for Maxus and has played a key role in evangelising the buying function in the organisation. In his new role, Sidharth will be responsible for leading GroupM India’s investment mandates across all media. He will further build on GroupM’s buying function and provide unique solutions to his clients. All the GroupM Agency Trading Heads and Cluster Heads will continue to report to Sidharth.

Sidharth Parashar, president - investments and pricing of GroupM India said, “It has been an amazing 15 years working at GroupM and I am delighted to join the executive leadership team. I am excited about the opportunity to lead the Group’s investments across platforms. GroupM has always raised the bar on innovation and providing exceptional value to our esteemed clients. I look forward to continuing delivering these company values each day.”

Ashwin joined GroupM from Reliance Broadcast Network where, as the COO he led the network’s Radio and Television business. At GroupM, Ashwin has been driving Trading and Partnerships. Along with his trading roles, Ashwin also leads Motion Content Group. Under his leadership, Motion’s unique value proposition of content Production, Financing and Monetization across platforms has become a big differentiator to the entire content ecosystem.

Ashwin Padmanabhan, president – partnerships and trading of GroupM India said, “I am delighted with this recognition and I would like to thank Prasanth Kumar and the GroupM leadership team for reposing faith and for considering me for this position. GroupM gives a unique opportunity to create, innovate and build in an entrepreneurial environment and I look forward to continue enhancing the GroupM value proposition for our clients, media and technology partners. ”

Both Sidharth and Ashwin will continue to be based out of the GroupM’s Gurgaon office and will report to Prasanth Kumar, CEO GroupM South Asia.