Siddhartha Singh
Strategy & Commercial Growth Leadership

Architect of unfair advantage.

Strategy and commercial growth leader with 21+ years across agency, client, consulting, ecommerce and AdTech; spanning India, APAC, EMEA and global mandates. I help leadership teams solve the growth problems that sit between strategy and execution: entering new markets, scaling across geographies, building go-to-market systems, and creating the marketing, media and talent architecture required to grow.

For agencies, founders, scale-ups, VCs and accelerators: available as a strategy partner, pitch / new-business leader and fractional marketing, media or strategy lead. I help agencies sharpen their strategic product and win complex business; Indian scale-ups go global; global startups enter India; and early-stage businesses build the growth system before they scale the spend.

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21+Years in strategy, marketing and growth
17 / 23Pitches personally led and won
$700MMulti-AOR DME ecosystem led
$170MGlobal SK-II AOR business
01
Core territories

The problems I am built to lead.

My range spans strategy, planning, growth, brand, behaviour, media effectiveness, consulting and AI. I have worked across India, APAC, EMEA and global remits, and across FMCG, beauty, technology, ecommerce, travel, financial services and AdTech. The common thread is leadership through ambiguity: define the problem, build the strategic argument, align the system around it, and translate the answer into something that can operate across markets rather than only in a deck.

Business & Growth Strategy

Integrated Planning

Pitch Leadership

Brand & Communications Strategy

Culture & Behavioural Insight

Media Effectiveness

AI & Post-Algorithm Strategy

Global-Local Operating Models

Reach
APAC · EMEA · Global
Category experience
FMCG · Beauty · Tech · Ecommerce · Travel · Financial Services · AdTech
02
Leadership experience

Strategy with operating scar tissue.

Jan 2025 – Present

Antigen StrategyFounder & Independent Strategy Advisor

Strategy practice focused on growth systems, organisational distinctiveness, AI-enabled planning and the consequences of algorithmic optimisation.

  • Advise founders and leadership teams on ambiguous growth, positioning, marketing and operating-model questions; convert diagnosis into strategic choices and action.
  • Build original IP and human-AI planning tools spanning system interrogation, brief reframing, scenario exploration and capability building.
  • Authoring ANTIGENERIC and a wider body of work on how organisations recover strategic variety and distinction.
Sep 2021 – Jan 2025

DoubleVerifyGlobal Client & Agency Lead, APAC

Senior stewardship of major holding-company and multinational client partnerships across APAC.

  • Structured joint business plans and multi-market programmes around media quality, attention, measurement, carbon and AI-enabled optimisation.
  • Convened client, agency, platform and measurement stakeholders around test-and-learn agendas; translated new technology into planning decisions.
  • Trained 500+ GroupM practitioners and led executive workshops across the region.
Jun 2010 – Aug 2021

MediaCom / WPPGlobal & Regional Strategy / Client Leadership

Progressed through APAC Digital Lead; APAC Coca-Cola Lead; Global Strategy Director and EMEA Coca-Cola Lead; Global Media Lead for SK-II/P&G; and APAC Digital Transformation & Consulting Lead.

  • Led strategy and account leadership across global, regional and country AORs; managed senior clients, central hubs and market teams across Asia, Europe and North America.
  • Built growth, brand, media, content, commerce and data strategies; codified them into global principles, investment frameworks, toolkits and operating rhythms.
  • Won 17 of 23 pitches personally led across FMCG, technology and ecommerce.
  • Central Strategy Lead for global campaigns and toolkits including UEFA Euro Cup, Nestea Global Restage, Coke MasterBrand / Schweppes relaunch, Coke Stream and Coke Studio.
2007 – 2010

Travelocity IndiaHead of Marketing

  • Delivered 950% year-on-year transaction growth while reducing acquisition cost by 67%; integrated ATL, digital, ecommerce and analytics around one growth model.
2004 – 2006

Interactive AvenuesStrategy Manager

  • Led strategy and planning for the agency's leading clients and prospects; built early expertise across digital acquisition, ecommerce and measurable consumer response.
Strategic conversion

Ambiguous brief. Structured argument. Commercial outcome.

03
Selected strategy & pitch impact

Evidence, not adjectives.

The work spans pitches, growth architecture, global planning, operating models, AI, data and capability. What matters is the conversion from strategic argument into decisions, systems and measurable outcomes.

Pitch Leadership & Strategic Conversion

Led complex global, regional and market pitches across FMCG, technology and ecommerce, with 17 wins from 23 pitches personally led. Owned the strategic argument from opportunity framing and RFI/RFP response through war-room leadership, senior presentation and mobilisation. Experienced on both sides of agency selection, contracting, onboarding and governance.

Growth Architecture & Global Planning

Co-authored Coca-Cola's Global Media & Digital Principles, synthesising 140+ case studies and marketing-mix models into a global decision framework. Created planning architecture covering systemic diagnosis and sources of growth through behavioural triggers, connection roles, implementation and optimisation.

Coca-Cola / Global Strategy

Led EMEA strategy and account leadership across 15+ markets and a multi-AOR ecosystem of approximately $700M in DME; partnered with 150+ client and agency FTE and improved agency evaluation from 2.2 to 3.6 out of 4. Directed campaign systems spanning Coke Masterbrand, Schweppes, UEFA Euro, Nestea and Coke Studio.

P&G and SK-II / Performance & Operating Models

Built and led SK-II's central-global AOR setup for a $170M business through a 20-person hub and approximately 80 FTE across Japan, China and the US. Built a performance framework contributing to double-digit new-user growth and a 27% lift in brand search. Developed P&G's APAC video-neutral allocation framework, informing approximately $120M in investment.

AI, Data, Behaviour & Futures

Led AI-driven content planning and purchase-journey optimisation pilots; used agent-based modelling to explore post-COVID luxury scenarios. Designed data-driven contextual content interventions delivering 9% sales growth in impulse-purchase occasions. Developed programmes around attention, programmatic architecture, media quality and algorithmic optimisation.

Capability Building

Created Coca-Cola's six-day Recognised Media Expert programme and led planning, digital transformation and effectiveness training across APAC. Built frameworks, tools and learning systems designed to make strategic capability transferable rather than consultant dependent.

950%Travelocity India YoY transaction growth
−67%Cost-per-acquisition reduction at Travelocity
27%Global brand-search lift for SK-II
500+GroupM practitioners trained
2.2→3.6Agency evaluation score improvement
04
Most useful when

The issue is not more activity. It is the system producing the outcome.

Growth has stalled despite competent execution; aggressive optimisation is producing strategic sameness; a brief is asking unfamiliar or uncomfortable questions; or business, culture, behaviours, data and technology are being treated as separate problems but are actually one system.

05
Agency & consulting services

Help agencies win, sharpen the product and build what comes next.

I have spent a large part of my career inside agencies, not merely buying from them. I understand the commercial pressure of new business, the difference between a good strategy and a pitch-winning strategic argument, the problem of turning senior thinking into a repeatable planning product, and the operating friction between strategy, client leadership, media, data, technology and creative partners.

Useful to agency CEOs, CSOs, growth leaders and transformation teams.

I can enter as senior strategic capacity without needing to become permanent overhead. The remit can be a pitch, a strategic reset, a new-business system, a planning product, an AI/operating-model intervention or embedded fractional leadership.

01 / Pitch leadership

Win the argument before you win the account.

RFI/RFP framing, opportunity diagnosis, strategic platform, pitch architecture, war-room leadership, senior presentation, orchestration across capabilities and mobilisation after the win.

02 / New-business systems

Make pitch excellence repeatable.

Build the processes, templates, toolkits, AI workflows and decision gates that improve how an agency identifies, shapes and converts opportunities rather than reinventing the machine every time.

03 / Strategic product

Turn expertise into a planning system.

Codify planning doctrine, briefing systems, growth frameworks, audience/behaviour architectures, measurement logic and reusable strategic IP that differentiates the agency beyond individual talent.

04 / Client growth

Expand from delivery into strategic stewardship.

Account growth strategy, JBP design, senior-client workshops, cross-market operating models, capability expansion and propositions that move an agency upstream into more consequential decisions.

05 / AI & transformation

Use AI to create leverage, not generic output.

Interrogate where automation should replace work, where it should accelerate it, where human judgment remains differentiating, and how roles, workflows and products need to change around that boundary.

06 / Fractional strategy leadership

Add senior strategic capacity without adding permanent structure.

Fractional CSO / strategy partner support across a pitch season, leadership transition, capability build, transformation programme, major-client mandate or regional operating-model reset.

Agency-side operating model

Diagnose. Build. Steward.

Diagnose: focused intervention around a pitch, client problem, operating-model issue or strategic capability gap.

Build: a defined strategic sprint that converts diagnosis into frameworks, planning products, narratives, tools and operating architecture.

Steward: embedded senior counsel across critical pitches, transformation programmes, client-growth mandates or structural change.

17 / 23Pitches personally led and won.
21+ YearsAgency, client, ecommerce and AdTech perspective.
$700MMulti-AOR Coca-Cola ecosystem leadership.
500+Practitioners trained and certified.
Global / APAC / EMEAStrategy and operating-model experience across markets.
Discuss an agency mandate See strategy & pitch evidence
06
Startups / GTM / fractional leadership

Build the growth system before you scale the spend.

Startups rarely fail because they lack activity. More often, growth starts outrunning the system underneath it: positioning is still fluid, acquisition is becoming expensive, market-entry choices are made opportunistically, agencies and channels accumulate without architecture, and hiring starts solving yesterday's problems. I work with founders, leadership teams, VCs and accelerators to build the strategic and operating layer between ambition and execution.

Crossing a boundary?

India → world. World → India. Early stage → scale.
I can step in before the permanent leadership structure is fully built, helping define the route, build the operating architecture and recruit the team that will own it.

01 / Early stage

Build the growth architecture.

Positioning, category and audience definition, GTM thesis, acquisition logic, channel roles, media architecture, measurement foundations, martech priorities, agency/vendor choices and first-team design.

02 / Scale-up

Make growth sustainable.

Diagnose rising CAC, channel dependence, fragmented agencies, weak planning, measurement confusion or an overgrown stack; rebuild the operating model before simply adding more spend.

03 / India → World

Take an Indian scale-up global.

Market prioritisation, entry strategy, global-versus-local operating model, audience and cultural translation, media ecosystem design, launch planning, agency structure and local talent requirements.

04 / World → India

Enter India without treating it as another market.

India market decoding, competitive and cultural context, consumer and channel architecture, local partnerships, marketing/media strategy, launch roadmap and the organisational adaptation required to operate here.

Fractional marketing & media leadership

Senior judgment inside the business, before the permanent structure exists.

Some companies do not need another consultancy. They need an experienced marketing, media or growth leader inside the business for a defined period. I can operate across a launch, market entry, fundraising-to-scale transition, agency reset or senior-hiring phase.

The remit can include setting direction, building the GTM plan, structuring media investment, managing agencies and partners, creating measurement discipline, establishing planning rhythms, helping hire the permanent team and transferring the system into the organisation.

Engagements can range from a focused 8–12 week strategic build to an embedded fractional mandate over several months.

A GTM system, not a launch checklist.

The working method follows a four-stage progression from investigation to real-world learning. It is deliberately designed to move from divergence into convergence, then back into testing and iteration.

01 / Discover

Understand the problem space.

  • Immersion, exploration and investigation.
  • Research the context, forces, market and customer.
  • Synthesise information into relevant insight.
02 / Define

Turn complexity into a conquerable problem.

  • Clarify the real strategic challenge.
  • Identify customer, organisation and partner wants and needs.
  • Define the strategic approaches worth pursuing.
03 / Design

Build the strategic roadmap.

  • Develop solution pathways and operating choices.
  • Identify threats, opportunities and risks.
  • Co-create with internal and external stakeholders.
04 / Deliver

Launch, learn and iterate.

  • Finalise owned, shared and paid assets.
  • Align and lock the launch roadmap.
  • Test, iterate and gather real-world customer intelligence.

For VCs and accelerators: I can work at portfolio level through founder diagnostics, GTM reviews, office hours, market-entry support, pitch and narrative refinement, fractional leadership for selected companies, and support recruiting senior marketing talent.

Why this translates: my background combines operator, agency, AdTech and consulting perspectives. During my BLINK / APAC Digital Transformation & Consulting leadership period, I worked across transformation, operating-model design, capability building and multi-market strategy; alongside global and regional leadership across Coca-Cola, P&G and SK-II.

APACRegional operating and consulting leadership.
EMEAGlobal/EMEA strategy and account leadership.
15+ MarketsMulti-market Coca-Cola leadership.
IndiaEcommerce operator and market-builder.
950%YoY Travelocity transaction growth.
7 SectorsFMCG, beauty, tech, ecommerce, travel, financial services, AdTech.
Discuss a GTM or fractional mandate See operating experience
07
Current work / explorations / interests

What I am building and investigating now.

My current work extends the operating career rather than sitting beside it. The common question is increasingly precise: when intelligence, synthesis and optimisation become abundant, where does durable strategic advantage move?

That inquiry moves between commercial strategy, AI, institutional design, culture and human behaviour. Some of it becomes advisory work through Antigen; some becomes books, essays, diagnostic tools, maps and experimental strategic systems.

AI & post-algorithm strategy Growth systems Behaviour & choice Distinctiveness & sameness Institutional forensics Futures & trend theory Strategic anthropology Human systems
Antigen / Strategy practice

From diagnosis to operating system

Building advisory methods and human-AI planning tools around system interrogation, brief reframing, strategic variety, scenario exploration and organisational distinctiveness.

Open current strategy system ↗
Book / Organisational distinctiveness

ANTIGENERIC

A book-length argument that optimisation systems, inherited conventions and institutional incentives can manufacture competent but increasingly average outcomes.

Explore the manuscripts ↗
Book / Human systems

When Lions Get the Blues

An investigation into high-agency performance, internal collapse and the psychic cost of continuing to produce output inside highly optimised human systems.

Read related essay ↗

Live exploration threads

These are not separate hobbies. They are recurring research threads that feed back into how I frame commercial and organisational problems.

01 / Systems under pressure

AI as environment, not simply tool

What changes when algorithms cease to be specialist technology and become the infrastructure through which markets, culture, choice and judgment are mediated?

02 / Sameness

Why optimisation converges

From recommendation systems to brand planning, I am interested in the paradox of systems that work extremely well while progressively narrowing the range of acceptable outcomes.

03 / Institutions

Read the system through its own evidence

Annual reports, investor narratives, organisational language and operating models often reveal what an institution is actually optimising for more clearly than its stated strategy.

04 / Culture & change

Places, trends and illegible context

Cities, informal networks and cultural movements become laboratories for studying status, identity, authorship and the forms of context that formal datasets routinely miss.

Selected writing & builds

Representative pieces from the public writing and Antigen sandbox that show how the research is being converted into strategic argument, diagnosis and machinery.

Essay / Systems

The Post-Algorithm World

Algorithms as the environment in which strategy, choice and culture increasingly operate.

Read essay
Essay / Institutional forensics

The Agency — A Forensics Essay

What agency value becomes when production, synthesis and operating intelligence grow abundant.

Read essay
Essay / Culture

Why Do All Songs Sound the Same?

Recommendation, optimisation and the paradox of systems that work well enough to narrow discovery.

Read essay
Diagnostic tool

Antigen Bland-Buster

Ninety-five linguistic and organisational “pathogens” used to diagnose strategic sameness, algorithmic flattening and process fetishism.

Open tool
System map / AI

AI Vendor Dashboard

383 vendors mapped across 17 fields; exhaustive ecosystem mapping used as the precursor to strategic interpretation.

Open dashboard
System map / Industry

Media & Agency System Map

An interactive ecosystem map for reading structural pressure and the shifting location of strategic value.

Open map
Browse all long-form writing ↗
08
Education & credentials

Built across disciplines.

Education

PG Degree, Communications Management
MICA, 2002–2004

BSc, Biochemistry
Christ College, Bangalore University, 1998–2001

Credentials

IIM Bangalore
Leading Strategic Change

Advisory Board Center
Board Chair Certification, 2023

Google
Analytics, DV360, Campaign Manager, Display, Search and Creative Suite

Strengths

Systems thinking
Pattern recognition
Diagnostic framing
Framework design
Commercial judgement
Cross-functional leadership
Storytelling

Gallup: Strategy; Input; Learning; Activating; Responsibility

Working principle

Strategy is a verb. The change in the real world is the work.

09
Conversation

Start with the question.

The best conversations begin before the answer has hardened. I work across agency strategy, pitch and new-business leadership, GTM planning, market entry and fractional strategy / marketing / media leadership. That can mean helping an agency win and codify a stronger strategic product, an Indian scale-up go global, an international startup enter India, or an early-stage company build the growth architecture and team required for the next stage.

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