Pankaj Pagarani

I lead the Data Science team for Publicis Media in MENA, comprising of 40 professionals across 6 practice areas: AdTech, MarTech, Business Intelligence, Analytics/Measurement, Research, and Data Strategy. My key focus areas are people management, product development and GTM, client servicing and P&L management.

I act as a the Data Science practice lead for the Starcom brand, working with the account teams to identify measurement gaps and opportunities where Data Science can provide a solution around tagging, BI dashboards and/or analytics. - My main tasks are creating Data/Measurement roadmaps for key clients, overall project management of Data Science projects and lead on new business pitches. Since the inception of our practice, I have played an instrumental role in growing the team from 2 to 20 people (so far), and in generating $3m+ incremental revenue while also managing delivery of many internal-efficiency projects. - In managing Starcom, I’m directly responsible for managing clients that account for 70% of Data Science revenue. Overall, I play a key role in transforming the thinking of planners in Starcom to be ‘data-led’ and ‘data-first’ when responding to client briefs.

Worked my way up from Junior Exec to managing the GCC media team servicing Mondelez International - an FMCG giant with over ~$30mil in annual media billing across 20+ regional markets and brands spanning 5 product categories. I also led the pitch for and managed Souq.com’s offline media investments in the region for a 2-year period. Souq.com is now part of Amazon.com. Some of my key achievements during this period are: - Part of a team that successfully pitched for and consolidated the Mondelez business across CEEMEA, leading the media buying and analytics efforts. - Led a successful push towards unconventional revenues streams such as content and data/analytics, along with greater digital integration. Along with the client, I implemented scoring on fronts like “digital readiness” so that Mondelez remained industry-leading when it came to investing behind digital solutions. - 1 of 3 people selected from across the MENA region (400+ employees) for the Top Gun Leadership Training in Istanbul, Turkey (Oct 2010) – Top Gun was our former CEO Laura Desmond’s personal training program to groom the promising talents from across Starcom offices into future leaders. - 1 of 3 people selected from the MENA region (400+ employees) for the SMG market exchange program: an initiative for promising talents to learn from best practices in other markets. As part of the exchange, I spent 3 months in Starcom’s Warsaw office in Summer of 2008, getting exposure to Coca Cola and Kraft Foods’ media business in Eastern Europe.

As a furniture and furnishings buyer at Homes r Us, I was tasked with visiting trade fairs globally to identify and source products that we could eventually sell successfully at our retail outlets in the Middle East. I managed - the relationships/communications with the vendors, - co-ordinated on delivery cycles/timelines, - worked with logistics to ensure timely arrival of goods, and - finally with the retail crew on pricing and promotions