Isobar — learning to lead the room.

I’d learned to win and run business; the next unknown was leadership at scale — a Group Head seat, with teams to build and global brands whose guidelines had to be honoured and localised at once.

How to take an international brand system and make it feel native to India without breaking it — the discipline of global-local — and how to lead people to do that consistently rather than heroically.

I started thinking in systems and teams, not just accounts. Adapting Visa or Universal for India taught me that the interesting problem is rarely the creative — it’s the translation of intent across cultures and constraints. I also learned I could grow a business: we won new group mandates on my watch.

Leading teams and winning mandates made me want the whole engine — not just the room, but the growth of the business itself.