Asia-Pacific Power List 2021: Sindhuja Rai, Mondelez

Sindhuja Rai

Global media investment and AMEA CX lead
Mondelez
Singapore
New member 

As the consumer experience leader for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Sindhuja Rai’s focus is to maximise returns on Mondelez’s media spend across all consumer touch points. It’s ultimately her job to ensure the experiences around well-known brands such as Ritz, Oreo, Triscuit, Trident and Cadbury are strong, engaging and worth the investment.

In this effort, Rai has consistently nailed her numbers, with media ROI growing over 10% year-on-year, placing Mondelez in the top quartile among its F&B competitors, while her reporting framework has been adopted by peers around the globe. Her team of marketers in AMEA, meanwhile, have consistently outperformed, winning over 100 external awards and 7 of the 10 global marketing excellence awards at Mondelez. 

Rai’s role also includes driving new partnerships and collaborations, such as deploying Mondelez’s new content production model in collaboration with MediaMonks to create more streamlined and personalised digital content. Rai has also led negotiations with Google and Facebook on global media joint business partnerships in addition to engaging them on industry issues like cross-media measurement and attribution.

Following her early career across a variety of media agencies at IPG, Publicis, Havas and WPP in India, Rai is now among one of APAC’s most active marketers on industry issues, working with bodies like WFA and frequently speaking at industry events. This past year, she presided over the media strategy jury at Tangrams and served as head of jury for the APAC Effies. 

One of Rai’s most passionate agendas has been to foster diversity, equality and inclusion. Rai mentors and coaches future women leaders within Mondelez, which has a higher-than-average female ratio of 70% on her teams and has been actively involved with Campaign’s Women Leading Change awards. 

Last year, she was tapped by global HR and marketing leadership to be a coach for leading developing cross functional talent in AMEA. Since then, she has led the development of scaled local staff training on key topics like personalisation, data-driven marketing, social media management and media excellence.

Rai can be found on Twitter: @Sindhuja_Rai