Sashi Shankar named India’s most influential CMO at IMA, 2014

As the CMO, Shankar has been spearheading the marketing and branding initiatives of Idea Cellular, since May 2011

by Ankur Singh
Published: Dec 15, 2014 9:47 AM | 3 min read

Sashi Shankar named India’s most influential CMO at IMA, 2014

Sashi Shankar, CMO, Idea Cellular, was crowned India’s top CMO as exchange4media released its ‘Most Influential CMO List’ at the Indian Marketing Awards on Friday.

As CMO, Shankar has been spearheading the marketing and branding initiatives of Idea Cellular since May 2011. He has played a strategic role in launching and growing Idea’s 3G business with a focus on data growth. He has also helped Idea consolidate its positioning as one of the top telecom brands in India, on the back of some memorable brand campaigns such as Idea 3G Population campaign and Honey Bunny.

Shankar has over 32 years of experience in Sales Management and Business Operations spanning diverse sectors such as paints, consumer durables, industrial chemicals, consumer products and telecom.

On winning the award, Shankar said, “I am grateful to the jury that they found me fit enough to be awarded the CMO of the year award. I think the whole credit for this goes to the Idea team. Not only the 12,500 employees that we have, but also the team at Lowe (our advertising agency), Mindshare (our media agency), Law and Kenneth (our digital advertising agency), and all our channel partners who actually toiled day in and day out to make this brand what it is today. It is truly remarkable what we have been able to achieve over the past years, and this award is truly dedicated to them. I am privileged to be part of this team, and thankful for getting this award.”

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He joined Idea in 2011 as VP - Sales & Marketing for Gujarat circle, before taking up the responsibility of Idea’s leadership circle of MP & Chhattisgarh as COO. He then helped launch Idea’s services in Mumbai circle as COO and was instrumental in making Idea one of the emerging players in the market in a short span of time.

In his current role as Idea CMO, Sashi has played a strategic role in launching and growing Idea’s 3G business with a focus on data growth. As CMO, he has helped Idea consolidate its positioning as one of the top telecom brands in India, on the back of some memorable brand campaigns such as Idea 3G Population campaign and Honey Bunny.

According to research agency Traverse Research n’ Consulting, “Shankar is also assessing enterprise solutions and cloud services as a possible revenue stream for the organization. With Airtel and Reliance Jio close to rolling out 4G plans in the country –Idea needs to continue to keep pace with the competition.”