Rajesh Kumar Jindal
VP- Audience & Experiential Marketing, Asia Pacific & Japan
SAP
Rajesh Kumar Jindal is a Senior marketing & business leader with over 2 decades experience in marketing, sales, Operations and strategy across start-ups and large multinational organizations IT, FMCG and Industrial product markets
Currently the Leader for Audience, Industry and Digital marketing in Asia Pac & Japan region, Rajesh joined SAP in 2010 to lead marketing in Indian Sub continent and has been a core part of the team instrumental in the significant growth in the region since then.
Rajesh’s career spans over two decades, with experience across Technology & Consumer companies like Seagram, Perfetti, Microsoft , SAP & HCL. His areas of expertise include Startups, Marketing, Sales , Trade & Alliances , Operations & General Management. Rajesh is adapt at hiring, motivating , coaching high performance teams & Stakeholder management in highly matrixed, multicultural, international environments
Rajesh received his degree in Engineering from NIT Kurukshetra, MBA from IIM-Calcutta and has completed a program on Leadership from Wharton. Rajesh is a regular speaker at Industry & marketing events and visiting faculty at prestigious business schools. His views on marketing have been quoted by many media publications. Rajesh was honored with the Brand Leadership Award by CMO Asia and recognized among ’50 Most talented CMOs’ in India in 2012. He is a member on CII National Marketing Committee, Chairman- World Brand Congress and Chairperson of Advisory Council for DMAI convention . He was speaker at the recent World Marketing Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and also on the jury panel for the Advertising Club Bangalore 2013 and Marketer of The Year awards by DMAi in 2014.
Rajesh is passionate about supporting the cause of women empowerment and care for the elderly. He contributes his time on Board of Advisors of Biz Divas and Nana Nani.org – two nonprofit organizations in these fields. When not busy with work, Rajesh enjoys travel, food, photography , reading and painting.
Interview
What are key traits of a successful digital marketer?
Three traits come to mind – Ability to connect the dots with business impact, Hunger to learn /gain Subject Matter Expertise, Agility to adapt to change
Digital as a platform is always evolving, what are the key challenges for a digital marketer to keep himself/herself always updated with the trends?
There is no simple answer here – being a marketer today is much tougher than it was 20 years ago – we will need to commit themselves to stay current – both depth and breadth of knowledge. However I would also say that technology will keep evolving, but it is the ability to apply it for business, that will differentiate.
In India, what is the focus on continuous learning and upgrading skills at digital marketing level with organization and agencies?
I feel, this is being realized but Earlier approaches to corporate learning & enablement need to evolve. The level of investment has to significantly go up – at the organizational level, but more importantly at the individual level.
Digital Marketing 2020: what’s in store for the future?
I like to refer from an article I read in Fast Co. sometime ago(i) Most branded content will be generated by consumers – change from ‘Talking to the world’ to ‘making the World Talk’(ii) Consumers expect more information from the brands and they expect them to do good- Transparency (iii)Visual Storytelling – enhanced by rise of new technologies and lower cost models
What according to you has been the most significant innovation in the field of digital marketing/digital platform?
I think the technology innovation of programmatic 2 way interactive approach across communication channels is the biggest disruption & impact maker- we will see it not only at the edge , but increasingly also at the core of marketing strategy making it real time
