Mindshare restructures Asia operations to focus on emerging markets

Deepika Nikhilender will head the new unit, dubbed Growth and Emerging Market Solutions (GEMS), as its CEO. Mindshare expects the Asia reorganisation to provide marketers responsible for these regions with relevant services including emerging-class consumer activation, mobile marketing, category communications planning, ROMI, digital analytics, consulting, content development and management of quick data for insights.

GEMS will serve the needs of a number of companies that use Singapore and other Asian cities as their central marketing hubs for managing their emerging and developing growth markets across Asia, Middle East, Africa and others. Mindshare will look to support the GEMS Singapore hub with talent based in China, India, Middle East, Africa and other developing markets.

“Hopefully this model will enable clients to use all their partners more collaboratively—to create impactful solutions and drive growth in markets where lack of experienced talent is a huge handicap,” said Ashutosh Srivastava, Mindshare's chairman and CEO for APAC and growth markets.

GEMS provides a 'single-window' access to clients looking for specialist planning skills and implementation partners. The company has put together a team of client leaders along with specialists in these service areas. It will bring in bespoke planning platforms and a real-time campaign data-tracking centre, which Mindshare hopes will facilitate open-source collaboration with various marketing partners to develop integrated campaigns.

The partner companies will focus on word-of-mouth, activation, insights, data analytics and technology, and digital media. Partners include Kantar, Geometry Global, Advocacy, VML and several others. In addition, GEMS will harness global partnerships with digital and mobile companies that Mindshare already has in place.

Srivastava added that GEMS will be run like a start-up: data- and tech-driven, fast, flexible and provocative.

Nikhilender previously led Mindshare Business Planning across Asia-Pacific, where she developed its analytics, insights, strategy and data, and technology solutions. In 2010, she was promoted as regional client leader for Mindshare APAC. Nikhilener will now report to R Gowthaman, who was recently appointed COO for Mindshare APAC. Roy Sudipto replaced Gowthaman as chief client officer Asia-Pacific. He was previously managing partner of client leadership and partnerships and led key accounts including Unilever, Kimberly Clark and Lenovo.

Mindshare Asia Pacific’s GEMS unit and Nikhilender’s role are effective immediately.