Chief Executive Officer South Asia, Mindshare
Prasanth Kumar (also known as PK), took over as the CEO of Mindshare India & South Asia in February 2015. Prior to this he was the Managing Partner, Central Trading Group, South Asia, GroupM. PK manages in India, 5 Units – Fulcrum, North, East, South and West team comprising 750+ employees across specialized marketing services including digital, content, activation, data and analytics. Mindshare today has more than 240 clients, many of whom are clear market & category leaders He also leads the Mindshare teams across other South Asian markets including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Each of these teams is market leaders in their own country, managing some of the most prestigious global and local brands.
With over 13 years in groupm, PK understands the WPP brand and philosophy. Under his guidance, the CTG team became a central hub of all media investments, trading and partnerships across traditional media like print and television, and digital media. Prasanth has been with GroupM since 2004, and began as the trading head for Britannia. He then went on to become the South India Trading head, delivering outstanding service quality to some of GroupM’ s biggest clients. Prasanth took over GroupM India trading in 2007 and then South Asia in 2010, making the South Asian market on of the largest contributors to the Asia Pacific region. The CTG team in South Asia is a global benchmark of efficiency and expertise.
A media professional with over 18 years’ experience, Prasanth started his career as a trainee PepsiCo India, in Chennai, moving to The Hindu Group for a short period. Prasanth then joined Rediffusion Mumbai (TME) as a planner, where he spent over 5 years buying and planning media across sectors such as FMCG, Auto, Food & beverages etc. PK is an MBA graduate from Madras University and Kendriya Vidyalaya product. An avid sports enthusiast and himself indulges in many of them, Tennis, Badminton, Soccer being some his favorites.
PK in 2005 won the APAC Media planner/ Buyer of the year. It’s the first time an Indian won this APAC award in this category. Prasanth is also on the Campaign India A List for the last 3 years.
What he loves is to spend most of his time with team, challenging status quo, and Shaping solutions for clients, for new practices, new products and especially for the team’s progress itself.
