Mindshare has announced that Prasanth Kumar has been promoted to the role of South Asia chief executive.

Kumar, known as ‘PK’, is currently head of GroupM’s Central Trading Group, and a member of the group’s South Asia Executive Committee. He will report to both GroupM South Asia CEO CVL Srinivas and Mindshare Asia Pacific COO Gowthaman Ragothaman.

Kumar takes up the position on 1 March, replacing Ravi Rao, who is set to take up an as-yet unannounced role within WPP’s GroupM.

Ragothaman said: “India is at the inflexion point on digital, content, analytics, e-commerce and measurement and in [Kumar] we have a seasoned veteran to lead Mindshare to the next level.

“And I am particularly happy that we continue to groom and grow talent from our larger GroupM eco-system with diverse talent and experience to leadership positions, which speaks highly about our talent in the market place.”

Srinivas added: “[Kumar] was a unanimous choice for this role. He is a very dynamic leader always full of ideas and a true organisation man. In the past ten years he has played a stellar role in ensuring GroupM’s scale is leveraged to maximise value for our clients.

“He has championed some exciting partnerships for GroupM both in the digital and traditional media spaces. I am sure under his leadership Mindshare will scale new peaks and delight its clients with a quality media product.”