OMD India continues to strengthen its leadership team

OMD has further strengthened its leadership across India, having appointed dedicated leads for the agency’s operations in Bengaluru and Chennai, while also strengthening its digital leadership in Mumbai. The promotions of Bhavna Sharma (Head of OMD Bengaluru) and Uma Santhanam (Head of OMD Chennai), as well Nikshit Shetty (Digital Head at OMD Mumbai) follow the recent elevation of Sam Thomas to Digital Lead for India. They join Sulina Menon (Chief Client Officer) and Lalit Agrawal (Head of OMD India – West) on the agency’s executive leadership team, reporting into CEO, Priti Murthy.

Previously the planning lead for OMD India across various offices, Sharma will now leverage her deep knowledge of OMD’s product and the consumer landscape in order to continue building a more robust and sophisticated offering for clients in the South. As an established leader within the agency, she has already been a local market champion of OMD Design, the network’s proprietary planning framework, and led the strategy for the network’s largest clients. Speaking on her new role, Sharma comments: “I am excited to take on this new opportunity and work closely with the pioneering and energetic team in Bengaluru to build a superior planning product that reflects the needs of clients and brands in the South.

With over two decades of experience working in traditional and new media, Santhanam has delivered media strategy excellence for some of India’s leading brands across CPG, Retail, Banking and Automobile industries. Since joining OMD India in 2014, she has consistently delivered strong growth for the agency and will now leverage her media expertise and industry relationships to help the agency’s clients based out of Chennai continue to grow their businesses. On her promotion, Santhanam says: “We are faced with some incredible opportunities and now is the perfect time to grasp them, in order to grow our clients’ businesses as well as our own.”

Lastly, Shetty brings over a decade of digital experience to his role as Digital Head of OMD Mumbai, having served as Omnicom Media Group’s lead on the Tata Motors business most recently. In 2017, Shetty was even named India’s Top Digital Planner by Business World. He will now report into Sam Thomas, Digital Lead of OMD India, to continue driving digital excellence for the agency’s clients.

Speaking on all the promotions, Priti Murthy, CEO of OMD India, says: “It gives me immense pleasure to share that as we grow, we are growing our people as well – recognising and planning for internal growth alongside external. I am incredibly fortunate to have such dynamic, talented and dedicated leaders across all offices in India. Strengthening our leadership across the various regions will allow us to truly drive Better Decisions, Faster for our clients’ organisations, empowering them to connect with local audiences in more meaningful ways, thereby delivering better outcomes from their media communications.”