Senior Director, Strategy, India

Overview

Senior Director, AI Strategy, India will lead the end-to-end adoption of AI across MFG's Google business in India, translating regional strategy and approved AI capabilities into practical local action and serving as the primary in-market AI strategy partner.

What you'll do

• Own the India market AI roadmap and delivery plan, aligned with APAC priorities, Google's marketing objectives and local business needs.
• Serve as the primary AI strategy partner to India MFG practice leads and the local Google Media Lab lead, identifying opportunities and resolving adoption barriers.
• Partner with Google PMMs and Brand Social stakeholders to extend appropriate WPP AI solutions across media, creative and non-media Product Area workstreams.
• Provide senior stakeholders, including local marketing leadership, with clear points of view and strategic direction on market-level AI initiatives.
• Act as the AI bridge between MFG, other WPP agencies and relevant external agency partners to align delivery against shared media AI OKRs.
• Design and deliver localized, hands-on training, workshops and onboarding for cross-functional teams, supported by market-relevant playbooks and prompt libraries.
• Advise Tier 1 campaign teams on selecting and deploying verified AI agents and workflows across the campaign lifecycle.
• Embed approved solutions into BAU processes, building team confidence and capability rather than relying on one-off demonstrations.
• Track active usage, training coverage, workflow migration and WPP Open monthly active users; use the findings to target further enablement.
• Identify India-specific workflow gaps and architect, localize, pilot and maintain appropriate AI tools or custom agents using relevant local context and data inputs.
• Evaluate the quality and consistency of AI outputs and convene media, data, creative and technology SMEs to improve solutions.
• Capture successful Speedboat MVPs and market innovations, document learnings and work with the regional team to graduate scalable solutions into the central repository.
• Apply regional measurement frameworks to quantify time savings, output quality, campaign value and business ROI; report progress and recommendations to market and regional leadership.

What you'll need

• 12+ years of experience in media, advertising, digital strategy, transformation, marketing technology or a related field, with substantial senior leadership experience in India.
• Proven success leading large-scale change, capability building or technology adoption across cross-functional teams.
• Deep understanding of India's media and marketing landscape and of end-to-end campaign strategy, planning and activation.
• Experience managing senior client stakeholders and influencing teams without direct authority.
• A Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong practical fluency in generative AI, AI agents and their application to media, creative and operational workflows.
• Hands-on familiarity with WPP Open, Gemini or comparable AI, media and data platforms.
• Working knowledge of prompt and context engineering, agent testing and evaluation, data governance and responsible AI practices.
• Ability to frame use cases, mobilize technical SMEs and translate adoption and impact data into executive decisions.

Nice to have

• Google business experience.

Details

• Location: Gurgaon, India.
• Reports to: AVP, AI Strategy, APAC and India market leadership.
• Hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week.
• Employment type not stated.