GroupM Sri Lanka appoints Arshad Ahamed as Director Strategy

GroupM Sri Lanka yesterday announced the appointment of Arshad Ahamed as the Director Strategy.

He has over 13 years of experience in the industry both locally and internationally. He has worked in multinational agencies and corporates in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Bahrain, and Sri Lanka. His experience and expertise span across pharmaceutical, apparel, media, and consulting sectors delivering strong business growth by driving award-winning marketing campaigns, digital transformation, strategic portfolio focus, upskilling, deep segmentation, and hyper-targeting projects.

Arshad was the Senior Strategic Planner at J. Walter Thompson (now Wunderman Thompson) in charge of strategic planning for all clients across FMCG, Banking, F&B and Telecommunications before moving out to join the MAS Bodyline innovation team as Business Entrepreneur. At MAS his mandate was to scope new usage opportunities within the rapidly evolving lifestyles of women in western markets. 

He then moved on to co-founding the digital marcom consultancy Innovation Quotient where he served as Head of Strategy, Planning & Insight. Later he exited to join GSK Pharmaceuticals Sri Lanka as Manager Digital Transformation where he took the operation from having no digital marketing infrastructure to having a fully integrated suite of multichannel marketing platforms which was on par with global markets within seven months. He then took over a regional role for Malaysia and Indonesia GSK APAC as Portfolio Marketing Manager.

Arshad holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Bedfordshire, UK and a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK. During his tenure at J. Walter Thompson, he played a pivotal role in many of the campaigns that won awards at Effies, while he was the recipient of many talent recognition awards as well. When he moved to GlaxoSmithKline, he was the recipient of global talent recognition awards every year.

His hobbies range from adventure motorcycling, jet skiing, ATV riding and surfing to building large Lego sets and playing video games. 

GroupM is Sri Lanka’s market leader and the largest media consolidation company with over 20 years’ presence in the Sri Lankan media industry. GroupM is the world’s leading media investment management firm, a WPP company and is the parent company to the agencies Mindshare, Wavemaker, Mediacom, Essence & m/SIX.  GroupM is proud to partner with the largest portfolio of media clients in the country ranging from large multinationals, local conglomerates, state enterprises, SMEs, and ecommerce – tech-based businesses.

Together with its specialist units GroupM Digital, GroupM Investment and GroupM ESP, GroupM acts as a 360-degree service agency in the 21st century offering digital, outdoor, activations, partnerships, data, and tech. The company is also the only full-service media agency in Sri Lanka with its offerings spanning across data and insights driven communication strategy and planning, media buying, event management and partnerships, content production, OOH advertising, digital media. The agency also prides itself on being the key driving force propelling the digital media ecosystem in the country.

Commenting about his vision for GroupM and the media industry Arshad said: "Since the start of the global pandemic, every industry in every market is facing disruption. With consumers rethinking every purchase decision, from a rewiring of perceived value to preferred retail channels to brand and category substitution to big changes in lifestyles, I believe that commercial organisations need to be geared to gather, mine, discover and build on consumer insight to stay relevant today.”

“We at GroupM partner with our clients to ensure that the groundwork is laid in this way to support our clients to be able to operate in an agile manner and frees headspace for creativity. GroupM is in the best position to deliver this level of value given our undisputed market leadership, industry-leading partnerships at the local and global level, and the sheer volume of media investments that we make across biddable media, non-biddable media, and content. The 20+ year legacy of being a 100% multinational owned and operated organisation gives us a level of insight into mediums/channels that our competitors cannot match,” he added. 

“My goal is to lead GroupM through its next stage of transformation by synergizing and leveraging 20 years of locally developed, globally accepted statistical analyses of traditional media, our suite of propriety digital planning and buying tools (Xaxis View, Display, Native), soon-to-launch multi-screen attribution models powered by AI and ML, and industry the industry-leading reengineered ways-of-working aligned to GroupM Global (the world’s largest media investment company), to deliver greater value to our clients through every stage of the marketing funnel."

GroupM Sri Lanka Chief Operating Officer Sabry Haniz believes that the unique skill set, and the vast experience of Arshad will help transform consumer experiences and grow GroupM's offerings to match the expanding client demands in the post-pandemic new-normal.

"We’re excited to have Arshad on board as Director Strategy at the time where both media landscape and consumer touchpoints have rapidly evolved since the start of the pandemic, it has become increasingly important to grow our offering to match the expanding client demands. 

In this role, Arshad will help support the agency and specialty businesses' product offering by sharing and scaling consumer-focused opportunities, learnings, and successes with the insights and experience he brings from his previous roles across multiple regions, territories and cultures. 

“Distinction and differentiation are foundational components of our strategy and Arshad’s deep experience in brand planning, positioning and driving with an innovative approach make him a perfect partner to take this baton in his hands. We look forward to rewarding times mutually with his new role. As GroupM embarks on a transformation to embrace the ‘new normal on the back of ongoing pandemic and reshape the ways and means of building brands with unique creative-driven media solutions, we’re confident that Arshad will lead GroupM into its next era of innovation and growth,” said GroupM Sri Lanka Chief Operating Officer Sabry Haniz.