Q1. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your professional background, particularly focusing on your expertise in the industry?

I’m a business and revenue leader with over 16 years of experience in AdTech and digital media. My focus has been on driving advertising monetization, building strategic partnerships, and scaling high-growth businesses, including those with more than ₹ 50 Cr in annual revenue.

Over the years, I’ve operated at the crossroads of digital platforms, programmatic advertising, OTT, and performance-driven ecosystems. I’ve built sizable revenue portfolios, led go-to-market strategies, and collaborated closely with CMOs and agency leaders across sectors like BFSI, FMCG, D2C, and consumer internet.

Currently, I’m a Vice President – Integrated Client Solutions at WPP for TCPL and Danone. My main strength is staying ahead of how the media landscape is changing and helping brands rethink their investment and communication strategies to keep up. My experience spans both traditional and digital media, but I’ve developed a particular knack for digital video, CTV, social media, commerce media, performance marketing, and emerging platforms.

I lead a team that tackles everything from media effectiveness and audience planning to investment allocation, measurement, and figuring out how different channels influence the customer journey.

My career has given me a unique blend of experience in both agencies and AdTech. For example, when I was at Vserv, I helped build an audience platform called AudiencePro. This hands-on work has given me an inside view of how agencies, advertisers, publishers, platforms, and tech partners all work together—and sometimes clash—within the ecosystem, as well as the real-world opportunities and challenges each group faces.

 

Q2. Where are you seeing the biggest shifts in advertising budgets in 2026, and which channels are capturing the most incremental spend?

The biggest change I’m noticing in 2026 is that new advertising budgets aren’t just moving from one traditional medium to another—they’re heading toward CTV, digital, commerce-driven media, and channels where you can actually measure results. Linear TV is definitely on the decline, losing share year over year, even though TV has improved a lot in tracking, targeting, measurement, and fresh ad formats.

In India, digital is now firmly the main driver of growth. No matter how you define the market, digital makes up about two-thirds of all ad spend, and most of the new growth is coming from areas like social and video, retail media, connected TV, and programmatic buying. We’re expecting India’s ad market to jump by almost 10% in 2026, with digital making up close to 68% of all advertising revenue.

When it comes to digital, there are three big areas where I’m seeing the most new investment:

Digital video, particularly CTV and premium streaming

This isn’t just about “digital stealing TV’s budget”—it’s more about moving video ad dollars to places where brands get better targeting, measurement, and can be more flexible with audiences. CTV is no longer a side experiment; it’s now a core part of most video strategies.

Social and creator-led video, particularly short-form content

What’s driving growth here is the mix of reach, engagement, and now, commerce. More advertisers are trying out creator ecosystems to make content feel more authentic and relevant, instead of just sticking to traditional brand ads.

Commerce and retail media

This is probably the biggest structural change we’re seeing. Brands—especially in FMCG, beauty, consumer durables, and D2C—are moving their budgets to Amazon, Flipkart, and now quick-commerce platforms, since these channels tie media exposure directly to purchase. We think commerce-led advertising will be the fastest-growing area in 2026, growing by over 24%.

Programmatic and AI-led buying

This isn’t really a new channel—it’s a fundamental change in how brands use their budgets. Programmatic already made up about 42% of India’s digital ad spend in 2025, and I expect that number to keep climbing as advertisers look for more optimization and measurable results.

In short, ad budgets are shifting away from broad, catch-all media to ecosystems that blend audience, data, content, and commerce. Retail media, digital video/CTV, and social are becoming the biggest winners when it comes to new investment.

 

Q3. From the AI-driven campaigns and media strategies you have seen firsthand, where is AI creating the most economic value today, and who do you expect to capture that value?

From what I have seen firsthand, AI is creating the most economic value in advertising today across 3 areas:

• Media optimization
• Creative Productivity
• Data-based decision-making

We're already seeing AI-enabled layers of automated campaigns on Google & Meta’s ecosystem, where we just input the campaign goal, and it handles audience, creative, and delivery in tandem to deliver an effective outcome.

On the other end, there are a bunch of third-party AI tools that are helping optimize every ad spend, for example, platforms such as Scibids AI (automates and optimizes programmatic campaigns using AI to achieve a brand’s custom KPIs), Smartly (control all
your campaigns over different platforms from one central hub, dynamically generate creative variations, and optimize for maximum reach and engagement), and AudiencePro (An audience targeting layer to enhance the potential transacting audience on any campaign)

In terms of who captures the value, I don't think it will accrue evenly. Advertisers should be the biggest long-term beneficiaries, provided they retain access to their own consumer and performance data and use AI to enhance decision-making rather than simply automate execution. Agencies and ad-tech companies will capture value where they provide differentiated data, technology, strategic expertise, or proprietary optimization capabilities.

Ultimately, I see AI as an economic layer across the entire advertising environment. The winners will be those who can combine AI with proprietary data, strong measurement, and real understanding of consumers.

 

Q4. When you look at AdTech and digital media companies today, what separates businesses with sustainable revenue growth and strong margins from those that are simply benefiting from higher industry ad spend?

In the current market, the real beneficiaries of sustainable revenue growth and strong margins are businesses with a high-reach, high-impact platform or a superb niche value from their proprietary data and tech play. These are some themes that are at play:

Differentiated technology and data

Sustainable players have a real advantage in targeting, optimization, measurement, or supply-path efficiency. AI is increasingly becoming part of that differentiation, but it needs to improve outcomes rather than just become a marketing narrative. Some platforms, like Criteo and The Trade Desk, have continued to invest in AI while maintaining a highly profitable model.

Revenue quality and customer stickiness

I would look for high retention, increasing wallet share, and the ability to expand across CTV, retail media, mobile, and other growing channels. A business that grows because existing customers spend more with it is fundamentally stronger than one dependent on acquiring new customers every year. For example, platforms such as Amazon, which has DSP, Prime TV, Retail data and media, and in-app control, bring in high customer stickiness across categories.

Operating leverage

This is probably the biggest indicator of whether growth is sustainable. The strongest platforms can handle significantly more media volume without proportionately increasing people and infrastructure costs. As platforms move into self-serve, this is increasingly the trend to capture more market share without increasing headcount; a classic example is Jio Hotstar and Spotify, with self-serve models reaching far and wide across the spectrum of clients and agencies.

Control of a valuable position in the ecosystem

Businesses with proprietary data, direct publisher/advertiser relationships, differentiated inventory, or an essential role in the transaction tend to have better pricing power and defensibility. For example, companies like Mygate, NoBrokerhood, AudiencePro, Blinkit, Zepto, and Cred have unique audience segmentation that can scale and deliver proven outcomes for brands.

 

Q5. Based on your experience scaling advertising businesses and working with major brands, what is the one key takeaway you would give industry leaders and investors about where the next major value-creation opportunity in digital advertising is likely to emerge and why?

In India, the next wave will not simply come from shifting more budgets into digital. It will come from connecting discovery, consideration, and transaction, and using AI and first-party data to optimize that entire journey. In India, this is already visible in the rapid growth of retail media, quick commerce and social commerce, with commerce-led advertising expected to be the fastest-growing segment in 2026

For platforms and AdTech companies, the winners will be those that can combine first-party consumer data, commerce signals, media inventory and AI-powered decisioning. Quick-commerce platforms are particularly interesting because they sit at the intersection of high-frequency buyer behaviour, intent, and transaction.

The important caveat is that commerce media cannot replace brand building. If every advertiser optimizes only for the last mile, the ecosystem risks simply bidding up the cost of existing demand. The real value will come from connecting brand creation with demand capture.

So, if I had to give investors one takeaway, it would be: don't just invest in companies benefiting from the growth of digital ad spend; look for businesses that can prove a causal connection between advertising and business outcomes. That is where I believe the next significant pool of sustainable value will be created.