Deepali Naair of IBM to join CK Birla Group as group CMO
A marketing veteran Deepali Naair was with IBM for nearly five years and was serving the company as director, digital sales-India.
Deepali Naair, director, digital sales-India, IBM, has been roped in by the Indian multinational conglomerate CK Birla Group as its group chief marketing officer (CMO). Company sources have confirmed to Storyboard18. She was with IBM for nearly five years.
Naair comes with over two decades of experience in sales and marketing across consumer and finance brands.
In the past she has served as CMO for IBM in India and South Asia. Before IBM, she led marketing and digital at IIFL Wealth group of companies. She was also a non-executive member of the Board at IIFL Wealth Finance.
In financial services, she has held leadership positions with L&T Insurance and HSBC. She has worked with Tata Motors, BPL Mobile and Draft FCB-Ulka. She was the marketing manager for Saffola and Mediker at Marico. She headed products and marketing at HSBC Global Asset Management, and at L&T insurance she was head – marketing, digital sales and customer service.
She led marketing, digital, analytics, inventory sales at Mahindra Holidays as chief marketing officer.
Naair started her career as a senior officer at Tata Motors. Later on, she moved to BPL Mobile Communications as a manager and looked after the marketing operations and later held the position of group head account planning at FCB Ulka Advertising. She was a marketing manager at Marico and a consultant at EMM Group.
She has also been a visiting faculty at the SP Jain Institute of Management & Research. She has been a jury member for AdClub’s EMVIES, EFFIES, ABBYs; IAMAI Digital awards & ECHO awards.
Naair has been a strong proponent of motivating women entrepreneurs and women led startups. In an earlier interview with Moneycontrol, she opined on why there are few women leaders in tech organizations.
According to her, once anyone enters a technology organization, it's a level playing field for men and women.
"If women do well, they grow. The problems and issues that exist for them in a tech firm, exists everywhere else. In Indian society, we don't have a good infrastructure for taking care of our children, and therefore women have to take a break. This is true for a financial services firm and for technology companies," she added.
Naair highlights that the real problem is whether enough girls are getting STEM education at high school and 12 standard levels.
"This may have changed now. But because of the impact, it will take some time to get filled. Also, I still don't know whether we have made enough difference as a country, in small towns and villages levels," she noted.
