Asha Kharga is the Chief Customer & Brand Officer for the Mumbai based Mahindra Group. She is responsible for stewarding the Corporate Brand and building organisation capability to repivot brands on customer experience, in a rapidly evolving economic and social marketplace.

Asha’s broad business experience across large organisations and her track-record in driving change at scale, is critical to lead the transformation of Mahindra into a future-fit, purpose-led organisation at the leading edge of customer experience. Asha is on the Group Executive Board and as a part of her larger mandate oversees Corporate Communications, the Strategic Digital Intelligence Cell and Mahindra Racing. She is also responsible for Mahindra’s Customer Data Platform – the largest repository of the entire Groups’ customer data that offers cutting-edge customer analytics to drive business impact for Group Companies.

Asha serves on the Boards of several Mahindra Companies including Mahindra Lifespaces, which is a listed company on the Stock Exchange.

Asha has 25 years of rich experience that spans FMCG, financial services and advertising. She joined the Mahindra Group from Axis Bank where she was the Executive Vice-President and Group Chief Marketing Officer for the Bank and its subsidiaries. Before Axis Bank, she was with Unilever for almost a decade in a variety of brand and marketing roles. She is seasoned in building trusted brands that include new category adoption as well as driving exponential growth on large brands. She led the consumer & customer centricity agenda at HUL and launched Unilever’s sustainability living plan in India. Her last role in Hindustan Unilever Ltd. was as Marketing Director of the 600 mln euros (2016 figures) tea business for South Asia.

Asha spent the first decade of her career with leading advertising agencies that include Leo Burnett, J Walter Thompson and TBWA, and has worked on brands like Lux, Close-Up, Tide, Mattel Toys, Nivea, Samsonite, Sony Entertainment Television, Frooti, and Swissair amongst a host of others. Externally, she has been recognised as India’s Top 20 Most Influential Women in Marketing & Advertising, by Business World.

Asha is an MBA in Marketing from Mumbai University. One of her greatest personal beliefs is that solidarity between women can be a potentially transforming force and hence helping young women leaders reach their true potential is a personal motivation.