40 Under 40 2024: Sambashiva Srisailapathy, GrabTaxi

Sambashiva Srisailapathy

Head, regional key account management
Grab
Singapore 

Joining a super-app at a time where its advertising arm is one of the fastest-growing revenue channels can be pressurising for a new leader. Well, upon joining GrabAds to oversee key regional accounts, Sambashiva Srisailapathy absorbed this pressure with conviction by overseeing regional joint business plans with FMCG brands that led to a wave of new users and an increase in FMCG revenue—by triple digits YOY.

Under his leadership, GrabAds also expanded into Greater China which proved an effective way to introduce Chinese brands to Southeast Asia, and vice versa. One standout achievement was unlocking the Tomato Interactive partnership which led to GrabAds’ regional win with Tencent’s game title Arena Breakout. He also sets his sights across diverse categories such as travel for which GrabAds partnered with Tourism Japan. The campaign encouraged Southeast Asian travellers to ‘discover another side of Japan’ and became a stepping stone for the growth of the travel category for the company.

Over the last four years at Grab, Srisailapathy’s remit has evolved to now encompass a range of responsibilities including revenue growth, building and nurturing teams, managing diverse portfolios, and forging partnerships. Having started his stint at Grab in a media strategy role, his definitive rise within a highly competitive tech platform is a showcase of his proactiveness. For instance, take the co-creation of Spark by GrabAds, the company’s brand immersion experience that has led to market-first executions such as the Coke x Grab World Cup campaign.

Srisailapathy’s peers speak highly of his infectious energy, something which was exemplary at Campaign’s Mediaworks event nearly a decade ago that led to a career breakthrough of sorts. The regional strategy head for Publicis Group who was in attendance at the event offered him a role based on his palpable passion.

These days, his energy is also channelled towards giving back to those around him by co-creating an internal sales awards programme to motivate staff and leading community engagement programmes for Grab such as beach clean-ups. He is also a council member of IAB Southeast and India where he’s currently part of the Privacy Council to shape Southeast Asia’s digital privacy frameworks across the Philippines and India from a publisher perspective.