Mumbai: GroupM India, WPP’s media investment group, Friday elevated Atique Kazi to president - Data, Performance and Digital Products, with effect from 2 August.
Kazi will be based out of the agency’s Mumbai office and report to GroupM South Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar and Xaxis APAC CEO Arshan Saha. He will also be joining the conglomerate’s executive committee, the company said in a statement.
Kazi has been a part of the GroupM family since 2013. He was integral in launching Xaxis in India before moving to Singapore to take over a regional role. He established the agency’s AI-enabled influencer marketing solution, INCA across 10 key markets.
In his new role, Atique will continue to build on the brand’s best practices and technologies across the fields of data analytics, deep learning, process mining, performance marketing and business intelligence to create efficient, fast, and scalable value-added processes, it further said.
Welcoming Kazi on board, Prasanth Kumar said, “At GroupM our focus is to continue evolving by offering flexible, scalable and innovative solutions. Atique joining the core team at GroupM India is the reflection of our commitment towards offering digital solutions that can create great value-add for brands in this ever-evolving market. I look forward to working closely with Atique and I am confident that he will continue to grow our digital offerings. His expertise of aiming at innovation and providing value-propositions will be key towards Digital Transformation of our clients and partners.”
Arshan Saha said, “The scale and speed of digital transformation and the fact that India as a market has demonstrated its leadership in this area means that we need to have our best talent to fulfil this demand. Atique is one of our very best with a proven track record locally and most recently regionally in APAC where he launched and scaled GroupM’s Influencer and content arm – INCA. Having worked with Atique for over 8 years, I can attest to his leadership, curiosity, knowledge and drive which are invaluable in defining and determining client success.”
Before joining GroupM Kazi was a part of Yahoo! in London heading planning and strategy for emerging markets in EMEA. His career pedigree also spans The Economist, The Times Group, JVC etc over the past 18+ years.
On his new role, Kazi said, “I am excited by this role given the scale of the opportunity to drive further growth within GroupM. I strongly believe that digital acceleration provides agility to organizations. With the support of better data, analysis, innovation, stronger performance, and result orientation we can better respond to brand challenges and accelerate their transformation journeys and help them achieve faster business outcomes. India is a market of opportunities and by leveraging GroupM’s digital expertise we can redefine the ecosystem.”
