Abhinav Kumar

Global Chief Marketing Officer
TCS
Belgium

Abhinav Kumar’s 22-year career with TCS has seen him oversee a rise in TCS’ brand value from US$2.3 billion in 2010 to US$19.2 billion in 2024, reflecting his own focus on quantifying the value of reputation. As a high-profile presence across the marketing and communications worlds, Kumar lives by the rule that "the most important decision you make any day is how you allocate your time". He seems to have managed his very effectively – he was elevated last year to global CMO of TCS, after previously serving as chief marketing and communications officer for global markets at the Indian IT giant.

After working in numerous marketing and communications roles for TCS across regions, including India, LatAm and Europe, Kumar has emerged as one of the B2B world’s most eloquent voices when it comes to making the case for communicators at the highest levels of an organization. He oversees an integrated function that spans branding, media relations, events, sponsorships (including TCS’ big-budget marathon partnerships), growth marketing/sales, content, stakeholder engagement, executive communications and public affairs. 

As part of the global senior management team, Kumar also serves as official spokesperson for the company and represents TCS and the wider Tata Group with European governments and institutions in Brussels. He has also been the driver of TCS’ strategic partnership with the World Economic Forum since 2009, helping build a compelling brand presence for the company at Davos.

Kumar’s work at TCS has resulted in several awards – including a SABRE Award for Individual Achievement in 2019 – as he has successfully shifted the company’s approach towards more creative, integrated and effective campaigns, which have also helped underpin its rise into one of the world's largest IT services firms, one of the fastest-growing companies and the second most valuable brand in its sector.

Can you share a moment in your career when you saw PR's direct impact on business performance?
There is a famous quote in one of Ernest Hemingway’s novels: when a character is asked how he went bankrupt, the response is: “Two ways. First gradually, then suddenly.” Applied in a more positive context, that’s exactly how PR/communications works. To build the story, positioning and central narrative of your brand, you need to consistently work on it for a long time. While this consistency is essential, there will also be moments when you can greatly uplift your brand through taking advantage of opportunities and by applying creativity. It important for PR teams to understand and work on this duality: keep great consistency, as well as surge and rise to the occasion when needed. If I look across my 22-year career with TCS, for most of it we have maintained a steady stream of PR performance, being ranked top three consistently in our industry for share of voice. There have been innumerable occasions where our teams have managed to move the needle for our business: each occasion, when communicated right, helped us shift perceptions progressively. For example, this year we did exceptional PR around our Formula E team: Jaguar TCS racing on the rapid strides it is making in driving innovation in electronic mobility, the announcement of our latest marathon property, the TCS Sydney marathon in Australia, a major study we did in Artificial Intelligence and the expansion of our operations in Brazil and Mexico. If you ask me how we built our brand from 33% to 84% awareness levels and add over $17 billion of brand value over the last decade, my answer would be: “Two ways. First gradually, then suddenly.”

What are the communications industry's biggest challenges and opportunities in the year ahead?
Undoubtedly the big focus for PR and creative agencies is the same thing their clients are focused on: artificial intelligence. In fact we recently conducted the largest survey of its kind, on how AI is being used in business, polling 1,300 C-suite business leaders from 24 countries, and it demonstrated that the three corporate units which had most adopted AI were finance, HR and marketing/comms. Over 70% of companies are now using generative n AI to improve their content and messaging, and seeking support from their agencies to help decipher, experiment with and scale the rapidly evolving capabilities that AI has to offer. AI holds great potential for the comms function on many fronts – stakeholder engagement, content creation, human representation by digital avatars, deep insights – and at the same time it contains many risks, from regulatory and IPR issues to growing misinformation and cyber threats. In terms of challenges: talent, misinformation and the role of PR, and creating more inclusion and diversity in the industry will remain hot-button issues for the period ahead.

What have you most admired about the communications industry over the past year, and what has disappointed you?
Admire: the industry's ability to constantly reinvent itself and remain relevant to the times. The fact that, in spite of challenges on many fronts, the PR industry is set to grow by 7-8% in 2024 with 70% of firms saying they are expecting growth, shows how the industry is able to find opportunities for itself to stay relevant to clients. Disappointment: Given how much firepower it has, the industry and come companies here are often not that great at drinking their own medicine. Whenever an PR agency becomes a story itself or faces a crisis, often you find they are very poor at dealing with the crisis. Also, the longstanding issue of having a common standard of measurement to showcase the value the profession brings remains a gap area, and the profession has not done enough to rally around a standard.

What work from your team are you most proud of over the past year?
Our teams worldwide are doing some phenomenal work. One of the most high-impact and highly-engaging pieces of marketing and communications work we do is around our growing sports portfolio of marathon and running properties, to which we added the TCS Sydney marathon this year. Also, the work that our teams have done in the Formula E racing team we run along with JLR, the Jaguar TCS racing team, has been very compelling in engaging our client and partner communities worldwide, from tradeshows to some of our client events. Finally, our team launched a major first of its kind survey of the use of Artificial Intelligence in Business, which both informed and engaged our clients and partners. You can find the study here: https://www.tcs.com/insights/global-studies/ai-business-study-key-findings-report

How have you switched off from work and maintained wellness over the past year?
Its critical to maintain a good balance. If you look the best athletes across the world, they spend only a very small percentage of their time performing - usually less than 10%, a larger amount training - 50% and with copious amount of rest - 40% of their time. Business Leaders need to think similarly and overinvest in preparation, engage in adequate rest and inspiration time and this hugely improves how they perform, when they need to. The most important element I have been focusing on is getting adequate amount of sleep, with the help of some great tracking technology from my Garmin Instinct wearable. If you want to know how important sleep is, read the book " Why we sleep" by Matthew Walker. I promise you; it will change your life.

Which book/movie/TV show/podcast/playlist/other cultural source has helped you get through the past year or provided inspiration?
Some of my recent excellent reads include: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg (Great book for this community in particular!) 4000 weeks by Oliver Burkman (It puts your most rare resource - time - in perspective) Nero by Conn Iggulden (Historical fiction is my go to – nothing like learning from the lessons of history, while reading it in storied format which brings to life the times, lives and emotions of those who walked the planet before us.)

If I wasn't working in marketing/communications, I would be...
My answer remains unchanged from previous years! In an alternative metaverse, it would be an honor to work in aerospace or as a climate scientist. I greatly admire people in both these professions. For the continuity of life, we need to either protect our planet better, or find new ones to live on. I hope we do both.