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Yash Rohra flips the script at Represent

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MUMBAI: The music marketing maven announced last month he has left Warner Music India to become head of marketing and streaming at Represent, the Mumbai-based artist management outfit that Forbes crowned a “top Indian music startup”. It is a strategic pivot that swaps Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa for Anuv Jain and MC Stan—and international promotion for global export.

Rohra’s Warner stint was nothing short of spectacular. He helped shepherd Ed Sheeran’s Sapphire  featuring Arijit Singh to number one, watched Rosé and Bruno Mars’s APT climb the charts, and oversaw Coldplay’s Indian invasion, which netted over 200m streams across all platforms in three months—one of the biggest jumps for an international act visiting India. He also championed Taambdi Chaamdi, the first proper Marathi electronic hit, taking it from viral moment to certified superhit.

The work brought him close to the machinery of global music promotion: collaborations with Diljit Dosanjh and Karan Aujla, partnerships with streaming platforms, and the arcane art of turning international releases into Indian chart-toppers. Rohra name-checks a dozen colleagues who “pushed, trusted, and shaped” his thinking on marketing and music. It reads like a Warner Music India roll call.

But Represent offered something Warner could not: the chance to reverse-engineer the playbook. Instead of importing hits, Rohra now exports them. His new roster includes Jonita Gandhi, Anuv Jain, MC Stan, Yashraj, Lost Stories and Jay Dhir—a motley crew of independent Indian artists who have built followings without major label backing. Represent, led by Aayushman Sinha (another Forbes-anointed “new age entrepreneur”), manages over 20 artists and has racked up more than 1,000 global brand collaborations. The company also dabbles in creator management, consulting, strategic partnerships and investments in direct-to-consumer businesses.

Rohra’s career arc traces the evolution of India’s music industry. He started as a music programmer and curator at BookMyShow in 2017, creating 1,200-plus international playlists and analysing user listening patterns to boost ticket sales for concerts and films. A stint in digital marketing at Mindstorm followed, managing accounts for Bath & Body Works India and Parachute’s Africa and Russia operations. Then came Hoopr, India’s first music licensing platform, where he spent two years as senior manager for music and content acquisition, building a library of 5,000-plus tracks with over 300 artists and launching “Sing To Sync”, India’s first toplining contest.

Warner was the natural next step—a chance to work with the biggest names in the business and learn how global music promotion actually functions. Now comes the hard part: applying those lessons to Indian artists trying to break international markets. It is one thing to promote Coldplay in India. Quite another to promote MC Stan in Los Angeles.

If Rohra can pull it off, he will have cracked the code that has eluded most Indian independent labels. If not, well, at least he got to work with Ed Sheeran first. The man knows his way around a chart.

Brands

Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board

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Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.

Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.

“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.

The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.

Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.

The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.

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Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships

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SINGAPORE: Anuvrat Rao has taken charge as APAC  head of commerce and signals partnerships at Meta, steering monetisation deals across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp from Singapore. The former Google executive, known for launching Google Assistant, PWAs, AMP and Firebase across Asia-Pacific, steps into the role after a high-growth stint as chief business officer at Locofy.ai.

At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.

Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.

Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.

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Brnd.me enters Europe as haircare brands power global expansion

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Bengaluru:  Brnd.me, the global consumer brands company formerly known as Mensa Brands, has entered the European market following strong momentum across the Middle East, the United States and Canada.

The company has launched across the UK, Germany, France and Spain, with plans to expand into Italy, the Netherlands and Poland over the next year. The push is being led by its haircare and aromatherapy brands, Botanic Hearth and Majestic Pure, marking Brnd.me’s first structured expansion into Europe.

The European beauty market represents a total addressable opportunity of over $4 billion across haircare and aromatherapy, supported by high digital adoption and demand for accessible, performance-led products.

Brnd.me’s hair care and aromatherapy business currently operates at an annual run rate of around $6 million, with Botanic Hearth and Majestic Pure delivering roughly 10 per cent month-on-month growth, driven by expansion and rising repeat demand.

To support regional growth, the company has appointed a general manager based in Germany and is evaluating investments in warehousing and local team expansion.

Early traction has been strong. Within weeks of launch, Botanic Hearth’s rosemary hair oil ranked among the top five hair oils in Germany, signalling strong consumer pull in a competitive market.

Brnd.me founder and chief executive officer Ananth Narayanan, said Europe represents the next phase of the company’s international strategy. He added that the European business is expected to scale to a $10 million annual run rate by the end of 2026, with long-term ambitions to reach $60 million over the next six years.

The company’s Europe strategy centres on digital-first distribution, repeat demand and TikTok-led discovery, alongside direct-to-consumer expansion to strengthen brand equity and margins.

The move also aligns with growing EU–India trade engagement, supporting long-term sourcing and cross-border supply chains.

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