Adnan Ahmed

Advertising isn't legacy. It's how brands talk to real people — the parent choosing a school, the student picking a college, the family buying their first home or their last. Real Estate and Education aren't my identity; they're the categories where I've practiced that discipline across every channel, for 25+ years.

I led Real Estate for Delhi NCR — highest-ever Delhi Times revenue, and P&L ownership of Times Property, rebuilt from near-zero to profitable in a year. Proof a stalled business isn't dead, just under-strategised.

Before that: the better part of a decade leading Education, with P&L ownership of Education Times. Drove revenue growth through market segmentation, expanded the advertiser base past 700 institutions, and closed multi-crore deals.

I've never sold advertising for advertising's sake. I've used it to fix businesses — new markets, new commercial models, turnarounds nobody else wanted to touch. Individual contributor in Telecom and Corporate Strategy, then leadership of Human Capital — the range that shapes how I am as a professional today.

Off the clock, I cook by instinct — plain daal-chawal one night, Japanese cheesecake the next, both usually picked up off a YouTube video. The same curiosity drives the travel: 25-odd cities in, I keep returning to Thailand, Malaysia and our very own Jaipur for the street food, and still hit the golf range now and then, average as ever.