Mumbai: Publicis Groupe India has announced the appointment of Diwaker Chandani as Managing Partner, Influential India, as part of its efforts to scale and strengthen its influencer marketing capabilities in the country. Chandani will lead the rollout of Influential, the group’s global creator marketing solution, in India, with a mandate to build a more integrated, data-driven approach that combines creators, media, commerce, and technology to deliver measurable business outcomes.
The move marks a significant step in evolving influencer marketing from a fragmented, creator-led channel into a full-funnel growth engine. While the influencer ecosystem in India continues to grow rapidly, it remains largely fragmented, with challenges around measurement, duplication of creators, and over-reliance on organic reach. Through Influential, Publicis Groupe aims to address these gaps by enabling brands to achieve greater precision, consistency, and scalability.
At the core of this offering is Publicis Groupe’s Connected Identity, a robust data infrastructure that enables deterministic audience mapping and precision-led creator selection. Combined with the Captiv8 platform and Influential’s global network, the solution allows brands to plan, activate, and measure influencer campaigns more effectively.
Chandani brings nearly two decades of experience across digital and platform ecosystems, having held leadership roles at organisations such as Meta, Zee Entertainment, and Network18. His expertise in building creator partnerships and driving content-led media transformation is expected to play a key role in shaping Publicis Groupe’s influencer strategy in India.
Commenting on the development, Anupriya Acharya, CEO, Publicis Groupe South Asia, added, “Influencer marketing in India has reached scale, but it still lacks a unified, data-led foundation. With Influential, we are fundamentally changing that by shifting from a creator-first approach to a cohort-first, identity-led model powered by Connected Identity. By integrating creators, media and commerce on a single data backbone, we are enabling brands to move beyond fragmented execution to precise, measurable and scalable business outcomes.”
Leading the initiative, Diwaker Chandani, Managing Partner, Influential India, will focus on building an advanced influencer ecosystem that connects data, creators, media, and commerce at scale. He said, “Influencer marketing in India has reached scale, but not maturity. Brands are investing heavily, yet struggling to drive consistent, measurable outcomes. Our focus is to fundamentally change that. By combining data-led audience intelligence with creator ecosystems and media amplification, we are building a model that delivers consistent, measurable outcomes for brands.”
