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Saakshi Verma Menon has been roped in as Senior Marketing Director for Africa Middle East & South Asia by PepsiCo. She announced the move on LinkedIn.

She was previously with Kimberly-Clark to lead marketing for their brands in India. She was a part of the company’s senior leadership on the journey of transformational acceleration. Additionally, she was also responsible for shaping a brand-building organisation.

Before that, Saakshi Verma Menon worked for Nicobar Design, Colgate Palmolive, Uber and The Coca-Cola Company.

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Siddharth Raman has been elevated to Chief Executive Officer of Sportz Interactive, after earlier serving as Deputy CEO for the sport-focused media agency, having first joined as its Chief Business Officer in 2017.

In his current role as CEO, Siddharth Raman will lead the business development and client success teams and be responsible for identifying new opportunities to expand the company’s footprint across sports and geographies.

An alumnus of MICA, Ahmedabad, Raman graduated as the Best All-Round Performing Student in the Class of 2012. Before his work at Sportz Interactive, he kickstarted his career in sports marketing at the UB Group, wherein he worked with the Sahara Force India Formula One Team and Royal Challengers Bangalore. He also had a successful stint at DDB Mudra Group as an integral member of the Group CEO & MD’s Office to set up the Sports Business vertical with an impressive client roster that included PUMA, Premier Futsal, FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017, Twitter and Bengal Warriors.

Speaking to exchange4media, Raman said, “I’m excited about this opportunity and grateful to Arvind (Iyengar), our Board and our investors Marathon Edge for their faith in me. As an organization, the past 22 years have witnessed a fantastic journey not just in terms of products and services that we offer and the clientele we’ve brought on board but also the culture we’ve created and sustained. I’m looking forward to building on these pillars to make Sportz Interactive a truly global organization based out of India.”

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Harindra Singh, Chairman & Managing Director, Percept and the brains and brawn behind the much-acclaimed Sunburn Festival has moved on from his role of handling the largest EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival in the country. He helped the music fest garner worldwide recognition since its inception in 2007.

Talking to Everything Experiential, and reminiscing his days of handling Sunburn, he says, “My last Sunburn Goa - December 2023. The journey ends. I have an endless number of people to thank. In Goa – the Government, the bureaucracy, judiciary, local community, politicians, friends, and fans. And all over the country for various other Sunburn Events done since 2007.”

He reveals that it's been a lot of hard work, emotions. And a lot more that can't be listed or will ever be known. “Not only me but also Shailendra, Manuj, Devraj, Aditya, Aman, and various other people who left and or are still with the team. And also Karan Singh and his team that now take over to take Sunburn into the future.”

Singh feels good that he could help make this happen over the years - build Sunburn into Asia’s largest and amongst the world’s biggest EDM Festival IP that was even compared to Tomorrowland at one time.

Undoubtedly he is a bit sad that he will never be there, again. “Obviously, I can’t be happy letting go of something so close to me. Sunburn Goa takes the life out of me but gives life to so many.”

Singh confirmed to Everything Experiential that there are some developments in the pipeline, and that he will be ready to share about the same in a few months.

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MyMuse, a sexual wellness brand, has appointed Minhaz Fatima as Head of Brand Communications.

Minhaz joins MyMuse after leading the brand, social and creative vertical at Fi, where she launched and scaled the brand exponentially in a new product category across all digital touchpoints. She has worked with creative agencies like Jack in the Box Worldwide and Dentsu Webchutney Bengaluru, where she led work for brands like Tata Motors, Surf excel, Flipkart, PhonePe, and Amazon.

Talking about the appointment, Anushka Gupta, Co-founder MyMuse, said, “Sahil and I have a big vision for MyMuse and are particular about how we want our brand communicated as we scale. We’re not just building a brand, we’re also shaping a cultural narrative. For this critical leg in our journey, we wanted someone on the team who truly understood these nuances, had proven success in scaling a brand, and could roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. We’ve found an incredible fit in Minhaz. Her strategic insights and relentless pursuit of creative excellence make her a great asset to the team, and we’re excited to have her onboard." 

Speaking on her new role, Minhaz said, “The entire narrative around sexual wellness in our country is so dated. The conversations around pleasure and intimacy are led by ‘locker room chats’ or hypersexualized condom and deodorant brands. It’s a bit exhausting if you ask me because how much do we force a smile or hide an eye roll?  I love speaking about the elephant in the room, and MyMuse is not just speaking about it; it’s bringing it out there, normalising it, and celebrating it. I love the vision for the brand, and I was clear I wanted to be a part of this narrative. Because shaping cultural shifts and being able to lead that change is not an opportunity that comes to you every day. It’s an exciting time and an exciting space to be a part of.”

MyMuse is a Mumbai-based sexual wellness start-up launched by Sahil and Anushka Gupta, in 2021. It is backed by key investors like Sauce V.C. and Whiteboard Capital. 

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Naveen Mathur has been appointed as the Head of International Sales for Network18, according to the company's internal memo accessed by e4m. He joins the company from Times Internet, where in his last stint he was the Head-International Revenue Strategy, Publisher Partnerships & Strategic Alliances.

At Network18, Naveen will lead all International Revenue initiatives across platforms and will be responsible for driving strong growth for the vertical. He will work closely with the cluster CEOs to drive revenues. He will work from the network's Noida / Gurgaon office and the existing International sales team at Network18 will align with him.

Naveen has over 23 years of experience across Media, International Business, Alliances & Global BPO operations. He is a graduate of Delhi University and has an MBA from AIMA. He also holds a PG Diploma in Sales & Marketing from NIS. At Times Internet he was instrumental in building a strong international sales business and has driven large strategic partnerships for the group.

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Rayomand Patell has moved on from Schbang as the Chief Creative Officer.

Sources have confirmed with e4m that Umma Saini will be taking over the role.

Saini comes with an experience of more than 15 years of working with organisations like Ogilvy, BBDO India, BBDO Singapore and Google. She has many credible awards to her name such as the Cannes Lions and D&AD. She has also worked on the iconic #ShareTheLoad campaign by Ariel.

As for Patell, his next move is yet to be announced.

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Criteo has announced the appointment of Melanie Zimmermann to lead its global retail media practice. As General Manager, Global Retail Media, she will be responsible for further building and scaling Criteo’s retail media business and developing its sales strategy worldwide to better support evolving client needs and solidify Criteo’s leading position in commerce media.

Zimmermann comes to Criteo from Macy’s, where she successfully built Macy’s Media Network. In her most recent role as VP, Head of Macy’s Media Network, she was responsible for developing and executing strategy and leading all retail media operations from media planning, sales, campaign management and analytics.
At Criteo, Zimmermann will report to Chief Revenue Officer Brian Gleason and her team will be in charge of driving the global vision and strategy of Criteo’s retail media practice and forging alignment across regions. She will also play a pivotal role in retail media product strategy and prioritization, closely connecting commercial needs and product development.

Zimmermann’s hire comes on the heels of Stephen Howard-Sarin’s appointment as Managing Director of Retail Media in the Americas in December 2023. Most recently at Instacart as VP and General Manager of Retail Media, Howard-Sarin brings to Criteo over a dozen years of retail media experience with leadership positions at eBay Ads and Walmart Connect. His focus is on building and growing Criteo’s retail media footprint with advertisers and retailers in the Americas and reports to Sherry Smith, Executive Managing Director, Americas.

“As we continue to evolve alongside the industry, we’re excited to expand our deep bench of retail media talent with the addition of two key industry leaders. Melanie has an impressive track record of building and scaling a high-performing retail media network. Her experience at Macy’s kept her at the forefront of innovation and will be a key asset as we help unify an ecosystem that’s poised for a new stage of growth,” said Brian Gleason, CRO, Criteo. “In addition, I am confident that Stephen’s diversified experience leading retail media teams for the last decade will help grow our footprint and continue to transform the business in the Americas.”

“With its massive global retailer footprint and thousands of brand advertiser partners, Criteo is not only a pioneer in retail media, but it’s also constantly evolving its unique position by tapping into strategic growth areas and building solutions to create an ecosystem that drives the most value for retailers, brands, and agencies,” said Zimmermann. “I’m excited to join the company as it continues to develop solutions for its clients’ specific needs and help them reach their full potential with retail media.”
Zimmermann started her career in consulting with Bain & Company in Europe before joining Macy’s in 2013, where she held different leadership positions including corporate strategy over the last 10 years.

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