Dentsu Asia Pacific has appointed former KPMG senior partner Harsha Razdan as CEO of South Asia, effective May 1, 2023. Based in Mumbai, he will be responsible for 4,000 people across the sub-region will report to APAC CEO Rob Gilby.
Razdan takes over the vacated Dentsu India CEO role of Anand Bhadkamkar but now with an expanded mandate for South Asia.
“Harsha is an exceptional leader with a deep strategic understanding of the competitive landscape,” Gilby said. “His background in brand building, overlayed with deep knowledge of tech-driven transformation brings formidable cross-capability expertise and will drive growth opportunities in creating a new value ecosystem for clients with consumers at the centre.”
“It is a very exciting time to be leading an agency network in India, especially with the significant progress we are seeing in the digital development of our market and what that means for brands,” Razdan said. “India is leap-frogging other markets in its adoption and development of new technologies, and it’s critical that agencies are capitalising on new opportunities for brands to speak to new consumers. I can’t wait to get started.”
In a career spanning 25 years, Razda has had stints with PepsiCo, Unilever and Accenture. Most recently at KPMG Razdan was responsible for overseeing Clients & Markets, Consumer Markets, Life Sciences and Internet Business while sitting on the Advisory Leadership team as well as the global Consumer & Retail leadership team.
