MUMBAI: Mindshare, one of India’s largest full service media agency, a part of GroupM, has announced the appointment of John Thankamony as head – programmatic.

John will focus on driving programmatic adoption and the embracing of programmatic tools by Mindshare clients. This will include the development of FAST (Future Adaptive Specialist Teams), Mindshare's solution for clients to harness the power of data. John will be setting guidelines to work with partners while ensuring that Mindshare’s clients have access to relevant and in-target audiences across quality and viewable inventory that is fraud free. He will also be responsible for harnessing data and technology products to drive performance and business results for clients.

John will operate out of the Mumbai office and be regularly involved with the Bangalore and Gurgaon office. He will report to Vinod Thadani, Chief Digital Officer, South Asia, Mindshare.

Mindshare, South Asia, chief digital officer, said, "John will be focusing on leading our existing programmatic offering and developing the programmatic adoption across our client portfolio. We are sure his ability to interpret strategy into the real time solution will bring in larger value for our clients."

Thankamony said, "The emphasis given by Mindshare to data and audiences is refreshing. India is at a defining moment in its internet journey with a lot of new digital entities cropping up in the market."

Thankamony brings to Mindshare a rich experience of almost a decade, including that of helping launch and run programmatic operations from Singapore for the SEA region. He has worked with companies like Amnet Asia, Google Inc, and CRISIL Ltd. He has product expertise in various programmatic platforms having run operations and analytics teams with expertise across multiple global and regional partners.