You've spent 5,000 (or more!) hours worrying about crisis communications. Your top genre was 'AI Integration.' And your most played song was definitely 'Let’s Circle Back.' Welcome to your '2025 PR Wrapped'.
We aren’t giving you a playlist, but we are giving you the playback on the biggest moves, the loudest PR news, and the trends that actually stuck this year."
The biggest agency story of the year is undoubtedly the proposed IPO of Value 360 Communications. This move signals the maturing of the PR market in India and the emergence of homegrown mid-sized firms as a serious challenge to the network-owned firms in India.
In November this year, Value 360 Communications Limited announced that it had received in-principle approval from the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) for the listing of its equity shares on the Emerge Platform of NSE (NSE Emerge).
Note: This is subject to the company meeting all regulatory requirements and completing the necessary formalities.
Your 2025 PR Hires Wrapped
Up next, the big PR hires of 2025.
From January 2025 to the present, senior PR and communications hires from and in India have shown a steady flow (barring the usual summer slump), with spikes in January, July, September, and November, driven by major corporate and agency moves.
New comms and country heads at TCS, OpenAI, IndiGo and Hero MotoCorp dominate the year, with OpenAI’s first India comms lead emerging as one of the most newsworthy hires.
The year started strong with energy, BFSI, aviation and auto sectors hiring and promoting communications heads.
Here are the major job moves in early 2025
Early 2025
🌱 Himanshu Raj was named VP of communications for renewable energy player Juniper Green Energy and Experion Developers, taking on a senior communications mandate across energy and real estate.
📈 Ramkumar Uppara joins CRISIL as director – PR and communications, leading internal and external communications strategy for the ratings and analytics major in India and key global markets.
✈️ Rashmi Soni moves to IndiGo as VP – corporate communications, succeeding C. Leekha and taking charge of communications at India’s largest airline.
🌐 FleishmanHillard appoints Madhulika Ojha as managing director, India, with responsibility for leading the global PR network’s India operations from Mumbai. It must be noted that FleishmanHillard is now part of a consolidated Omnicom Public Relations division that unifies all of Omnicom's and IPG's PR assets, led by CEO Chris Foster.
Mid-Year Drops
🏍️ Hero MotoCorp appointed Latika Taneja as head of corporate communications, corporate affairs and CSR, giving her charge of a combined reputation, policy and responsibility portfolio at the two-wheeler major.
🏗️ Sonal Choithani, previously chief brand & communications officer and head of market development with Hindustan Zinc, has now joined global natural resources major Vedanta as group chief brand & communications officer.
Year-end “big singles”
November was the most active month for 'big, beautiful' PR news, driving PRmoment India's highest monthly traffic in 2025. And leading the charge was Adfactors' comms mandate for the launch of 16 IPOs in 45 days.
The top buzzy corp comm moves in November
✍️ OpenAI appointed Vasundhara Mudgil as India's head of communications based in Mumbai, after her seven-year stint as head of communications at Spotify India and earlier roles at Intel India and Genesis Burson-Marsteller.
This role gives her ownership of OpenAI’s communications strategy and narrative-building in India, as the company plans to open its first office in India, in Delhi, and deepen engagement with local developers, enterprises, and policymakers.
🌐💼 Kinshuk Gupta joined as the chief communications officer, Tata Consultancy Services. He takes on one of India’s largest and most complex communications remits at a USD 20+ billion IT services major with a global footprint. This is the first time TCS has used the CCO designation for their head of comms.corp
The Journo to PR moves
The journo to corp comm trend continued through 2025. Here are some of the highlights.
🎞️🗞️ One of the key journalism to PR shifts happened when Mint's senior editor, Gaurav Laghate, joined Sony Pictures Networks India as head of PR and Corp Comms.
✍️ Additionally, ace turtle, a technology-led retail company, appointed veteran Wall Street Journal, ET business journalist Rasul Bailay as chief communications officer to lead corporate communications and strategic projects.
📡 And finally, former Indian Express journalist, Gairika Mitra, joined as the head of 'Managed Services', an AI-powered content and press release distribution service launched by PR Newswire.
The Singapore-India PR connect
In September, Ellerton & Co. Public Relations (“Ellerton & Co.”) announced its expansion into India with the appointment of Sanil Shirsat as its India lead. This move marks the launch of the firm’s “Greater Southeast Asia” vision, aimed at creating a communications corridor between India and Southeast Asia.
Redhill, a communications firm headquartered in Singapore, announced the appointment of Ankita Juneja as country head of India, just over a year after they hired Gaurav Prabhu for the same role.
APAC Hires from India
PR professionals from India were in demand at APAC in a variety of roles:
🌏🔍 In October 2025, Google promoted Gaurav Bhaskar to senior director, global communications & public affairs for APAC. With over 20 years of comms experience, Gaurav has been elevated internally. He earlier handled the same function for India, South-East Asia and South Asia.
🏢 After a decade at Weber Shandwick in India, Valerie Pinto joined APCO as MD for India and executive director of corporate, Asia.
🏎️🇯🇵 In November, Naraayan Kannan stepped into a new position as senior manager, Global Communications Office (GCO) at Nissan Motor Corporation. He is based in Yokohama, Japan.
📣 Publicis Groupe South Asia named Supraja Srinivasan as VP & head of corporate communications.
🇮🇳 → 🌏 Edelman closed the year by hiring Pooja Rawat as APAC chief strategy officer. She is Mumbai-based and joins from MullenLowe Lintas- signalling that India is not just a market, but a regional strategy hub. This move follows the appointment of Rakesh Thukral to CEO in APAC in 2024 and the elevation of Bhavna Jagtiani to CEO Edelman for India.
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