Women to Watch 2021: Nitasha Seth, Netflix

Nitasha Seth

Marketing strategy lead
Netflix
India

Nitasha Seth was one of Netflix’s earliest hires in the region, joining in January 2018 as a marketing manager. She has since propelled herself up the ranks at the streaming service as has contributed to its rapid growth in APAC by architecting innovative marketing campaigns and representing India in the global product team.

Seth began her media career as a leadership trainee at MEC, and was promoted within one year to business manager. It was in this role that she first encountered Netflix, as she took up responsibility for the platform’s account “almost single-handedly”, according to her manager at the time. After 18 months in this role, Netflix hired Seth full-time to handle its title campaigns, media strategy, and product marketing as a marketing manager. In October 2019, she served a nine-month stint in Netflix’s US headquarters as a market specialist for the APAC product team, where she is described as being a “force of influence” in representing India and the need for product localisation. As an early hire during an important time in Netflix’s APAC growth, Seth has delivered several firsts for Netflix and helped to establish the brand as a household name.

For example, she drew up the marketing campaign for Netflix StreamFest, a weekend of free streaming for anyone in India. The November 2020 campaign drove Netflix’s highest website traffic since its 2016 launch, as well as driving sign-ups and social conversations for the brand. Following the success in India, Seth is now working on replicating the campaign in other emerging markets. Seth also worked with Swiggy, Google and Twitter to design a recommendation engine that matches user moods to Netflix titles, resulting in a 20% increase in signups as well as several industry awards. She is now working on launching ‘Netflix MatchMaker’ globally. This is all on top of her work launching campaigns for Netflix titles Bard of Blood, Sacred Games and Delhi Crime. For her impressive work, Seth was promoted in January to lead marketing strategy and analytics for Netflix India.

Seth is described by her former manager as a “natural leader” with an “undeniable thirst for knowledge” and a desire to “drive a big impact and positive change to the business”. It is clear she goes above and beyond the requirements of her role. Seth runs the Netflix India orientation programme for new hires and is part of a Marketers4change initiative, which taps designers, marketers, and creative experts across the country to help solve grassroots-level issues. An example is working with Liter of Lights, which aims to provide lighting solutions to low-income households. Her recognition in Women to Watch 2021 is certainly not her first award—and doubtful her last. While at GroupM, she won Cannes Young Lions, GroupM Choreo and Young Spikes awards. This year, she was named to Pitch Marketing’s 30 Under 30, Business World’s 30 under 30, and Best Media Info's Rising Star lists.