Quick Summary

"Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make but about the stories you tell" - Seth Godin. Saket V Rao, is a professional with nearly 12 years of rich cross-category experience across in Marketing, Brand Management, Advertising and PR and a firm believer in the above quote by Seth Godin.
In his current role as Brand Leader at MasterCard (Top 20 Most Valuable Brands In The World) for the last 4.5 years I manage the marketing strategy for South Asia. He also manage the Marketing Calendar and Spends and have won 8 awards.
A Winner of '100 Most Talented Global Marketing Leaders' at the recently held World Marketing Congress, he has managed world’s leading brands in industries ranging from E-commerce to Consumer Durables to FMCG. He also featured profile in ‘Most Talented CMOs (CMO designates) in India – 2015’ book released by CMO-Asia in an event held on February 2015.
Saket V. Rao
12 years of Industry experience
https://in.linkedin.com/in/saketvrao
Current Profile :Brand Leader(South Asia) - MasterCard
Key Responsibilities
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Market analysis through a variety of mediums such as market research, customer research, product research.
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Providing detailed and precise reports to illustrate trends, predictions and relevant strategies.
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Creation of and changes in product design and sometimes content.
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Overseeing the expansion of product portfolio, i.e. new products and concept design.
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+ Do you really need to be very creative for becoming a brand manager
+ Is MBA really required?
+ Next Path/Level
+ How Social Media helping!
+ Is it necessary to have finance background to become Brand Manager with finance company?
+ Is it very diffucult to be a brand manager for a Engineer /Sales Manager ?
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Skills Which Helped Saket
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Leadership
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Marketing Reseacrh
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Product Development
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Trade Marketing
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Team Management
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Saket's Way Of Acquiring Skills
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Other Opinions
Saket as a Brand Manager
Essential Requirements & Key Suggestion By Saket
Career Track
Saket Rao As Interviewer: Brand Manager Profile
Send your Query
Courses/Case-Studies Suggested By Saket

Is brand management the right career option for you?
Account Executive (Client Services)
Responsible for managing brands such as Videocon, New Era and United Health Group through ATL Advertising, B2B collateral development etc.
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Designing and handling communication
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Led initiative to increase agency revenue targets
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Associate Brand Manager-Barclays Finance
Played a vital role in implementing the marketing idea and strategic plan for the successful and effective countrywide launch of the brand
Core Reponsibilties:
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Pan-India branch level Micromarketing (BTL) activities
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Launching new products for loans, debt consolidation and insurance
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Manage ATL initiatives for new launches
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Vice President & Head of Brand -Housing.com
Led a team of managing online initiative for Housing.com which helped in building it as hottest start-up in year 2014.
Core Reponsibilties:
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Creating a repository of all communication work developed by Publicis
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Optimizing marketing operations.
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Brand Leader(South Asia-Master Card)
Lead a 2 member team managing strategic marketing across geographies. Also lead a 6 member marketing team stationed at key bank relationships across India and Sri Lanka
Core Reponsibilties:
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Conceptualised and executed MasterCard’s biggest brand & card usage campaign in different south asian countries.
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Leading all digital initiaves for mastercard in south asia.
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Getting In to Industry
Truth About Brand Management
Typical Career Path
Industry Trends & Opportunities
FAQ's
Important Case Studies
Snapchat Case Study
Maggie Case Study
Workshops To Attend
Workshop on Brand Building
How to prepare 30 pitch to become a brand manager
Typical Day Of Saket As Brand Manager
Performance evaluation of campaign and meeting with marketing team to update changes.
Meeting with creative team
Meeting with agencies regarding
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Suggested Interview Pitch
Brand Manager to whom Saket Hire
1. Examples of leadership.
2. Experience of sales in finance and online marketing
3. Good Education Brand
5 Questions You Need to Ask yourself
Can you work with cross functional teams in one single day and come up with a story?
Can you live a life of consumer who loves your product so much?
Can you think of profit from small product price of worth Rs 1?
Can you think of new product from daily Life Routines?
Do you really think you can understand consumer psyche?
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Most Inspiring Brand Stories
Story of Master Card
Story of Citi Bank
Story of De beers
Story of Thums-Up
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Interview Questions
Q1. Your passion
Q2. Why you can be good in this profile?
Most challenging aspects of the job
To live expectation of customers and alwatys increase market share of brand is itself a great challenge.
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