India Content Leadership Awards and Conference - ICL 2025

Adityan Kayalakal

Adityan is a seasoned marketing professional with over 15 years of experience across traditional and digital media and communication. He has been a specialist at launching brands for a large part of this time having worked on launches for brands ranging from Jio, Mercedes-Benz, Hasbro, Tata Cliq, Tata Motors, Lodha, Parle Agro, Skoda, Jeep, Anheuser-Busch InBev to name a few.

The work he’s done across these and other brands has won him over two dozen honours local and global and has got him listed in 30 under 30 and 40 under 40 marketing lists in the past.

Prior to this, he was at the NBA where he was the lead for content and distribution partnerships. He led the licensing of NBA rights to Star India and then most recently to Viacom18. He also licensed the NBA 2K League (esports) rights to Loco through 2 cycles, created their first digital weekly basketball analysis show, led the rollout of their first branded content property (which won 2 Promax awards) and signed a partnership with the national broadcaster for non-live content.

He is currently part of the global brand team at BYJU’S where he heads social media, digital brand marketing and brand partnerships across geographies. His focus is to build the brand’s personality and build brand love on digital platforms.

Let me know if you need this to be shorter or longer or need a different perspective. Can provide it accordingly.

Amitabh Biswas

Over the last 18 years, Amitabh Biswas has worked in the field of Brand Management and Business Consultancy across Fortune 100 companies to shuddh Desi companies in Advertising, Telecom and Television. He has practiced, developed and innovated across every specialization of Marketing Communications. With a deep first-hand insight of Indian consumers ranging from BPL to global icons, he has seen up close how brands are built, nurtured and disrupted to catapult into newer orbits. A regular jury member for Indian and International Content and Marketing Awards competitions, he also co-founded a startup manufacturing India’s first street-legal chopper motorcycles.

Amiya Swarup

Amiya Swarup Heads Marketing Advisory and is Partner for Ernst & Young. He has nearly two decades of experience in fostering collaboration within the intricate web of marketers, media agencies, martech partners, and media houses, building a better working world

Anshuman Chkravarty

Brand Management and Marketing Communications practitioner with experience in working in India and international markets (Asia & Europe), with exposure in B2C & B2B domains. An MBA in Marketing & Post Graduate in Journalism & Mass-comm., with over 20 years experience in strategizing and executing brand launches, re-positioning strategies, media planning and buying, internal and external communication, social & digital marketing, PR & reputation management, crisis communication, events and celebrity management & supporting financial PR & IR.

Balaji Vaidyanathan

Balaji is an integrated marketing communication professional with over 16 years of extensive experience in building brands for both global and Indian companies.

In his current role as Marketing Director, CEEMEA for Franklin Templeton, Balaji is responsible for marketing strategy and building brand SOV for the CEEMEA region. The region covers over 20 countries across Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa and focuses both on institutional and retail businesses.

Prior to this role, Balaji was Deputy Head – Marketing for Franklin Templeton India and was responsible for leading all key brand initiatives. Balaji has been one of the early adopters of leveraging gamification, video content and storytelling in the mutual fund industry to promote investor education in the online space. His deep understanding of consumer marketing and customer lifecycle journeys have won him multiple awards in India and globally across creativity, content, innovation and effectiveness. Very recently, he was conferred with the citation of “Marketing Influencer of the Year” by DMA Asia at the 2018 DMA Asia Echo Awards.

Dr. Ankoor Dasguupta

A Digital immigrant, driven by passion, Ankoor believes in the power of Energy and Energize while bringing to the table a pedigree of 22 years across the spectrum of media – print, digital , mobile, event productions , some successful marquee pilot projects. Having worked across multiple functions – ad operations, business operations, content, strategy, sales, event design, media planning & buying, Ankoor has also learnt from the experience of having worked in different cultures and set-ups in national and international environments along with working at cross-functional roles. Ankoor is working with the vibrant and wonderful team at Arm Worldwide and driving the Content Marketing vertical.

Imran Qadri

Imran Qadri heads Marketing & PR for the iconic Harley-Davidson brand in Asia Emerging Markets & India region. He is based out of Bangkok, Thailand. He has been associated with Harley-Davidson since April 2019. Apart from India, he oversees Marketing for Southeast Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore), South Korea, Taiwan & Hong Kong as well. He has 14 years of Marketing work experience with brands like Hero Honda, Hero MotoCorp, Nissan & H-D. He has donned several hats in his past roles ranging from Marketing Communications, Brand Management, Product Marketing, Category Management, Media Planning & Regional Marketing. He has led teams and agencies deliver with award winning campaigns, launches & content. Recently he was adjudged among Top 40 Nationwide Experts declared by Business Mint for 2022. He was also part of Top 50 Marketing and Communication Leaders in India in 2021 as adjudged by White Page International and among Top 100 in Asia for 2022. He was one of the Social Samosa Top 40 Marketers for the batch of 2019-20 and among Top 25 Content Disruptors in India in 2020 declared by Vidsaga.com. He has been a jury member with many credible advertising & communication forums. An MBA in Marketing from FORE School of Management, Delhi, Imran has a B.E. Mechanical degree from MSRIT, Bangalore, apart from executive leadership & digital marketing certifications from Vanderbilt University & IIM Lucknow, respectively. He is a certified Sports car instructor and has a flair for writing.

Sharmila Sandeep

An MBA in Marketing from PSG Institute of Management. Also holds M.A & M.Phil in Sociology. Sharmila joined Saint-Gobain -Gyproc in 2021 as the Head of Marketing.

Sharmila has 18yrs of Brand and Marketing experience across various industries. Prior to Saint-Gobain, Sharmila led marketing and product management at ICICI Bank, Bisleri, Pidilite, Hatsun Agro, Radio Mirchi & Future group retail. Sharmila has vivid interest and acquired skills in numerous handicrafts, conducts workshops and loves being a swimming coach. She unwinds by watching movies and social networking.