Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer and President, Healthcare Business at MasterCard is among the Top 10 chief marketing officers in the world, according to Forbes’ ninth annual list of World’s Most Influential CMOs, highlighting chief marketing officers who are shaping business, culture, society. Joining Rajamannar is Mayur Gupta, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer at Gannett at 34th spot.
Forbes says “this year, CMOs “were tasked with much more than navigating their own companies out of the Covid-19 crisis,” where they assisted with vaccine marketing and distribution, addressed politics and other issues, including racism and climate change, and pushed for innovation ranging from e-commerce and new content platforms to adopting emerging technologies and complying with data privacy.”
Raja Rajamannar is the main force behind Mastercard’s “True Name” credit card last year, allowing trans and nonbinary customers to display their chosen names on credit cards. Although the company “ had a hard time finding bank partners,” Forbes says Rajamannar “moved forward with the product, which has since become a massive success both for MasterCard and for inclusive efforts that extend far beyond the brand itself.” The Indian American has also been “outspoken about the need to combat online hate speech and other issues facing internet platforms,” adds the magazine.
Rajamannar, who became MasterCard’s CMO in 2013, sits on the board of the World Federation of Advertisers and the Association of National Advertisers. Earlier this year, Rajamannar also wrote his first book, Quantum Marketing, which calls marketers to take on a new mindset that embraces new technologies while also more quickly adapting to modern consumers.
Mayur Gupta, who previously worked with Freshly and Spotify, joined Gannett last September. In his new role, has been tasked at Gannett, “with creating revenue and content channels for the media conglomerate,” Forbes says. “Gupta is now at the center of building a paywall for USA Today after hundreds of Gannett’s other newspapers already made the switch.” When he was appointed chief marketing and strategy officer at Gannett, Gupta, 43, relinquished his duties as a board member of the company.
To be even in the shadows of these incredible leaders & marketers is a milestone, being on the list with them – The Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs for 2021 is just humbling. Truly honored.
Gupta worked as CMO at Freshly, before which he was the global vice president for Growth & Marketing at Spotify. Before Spotify, Gupta was the CMO at Healthgrades responsible for Marketing, OmniChannel Solutions business and Digital Capabilities. He was the first-ever Global Chief Marketing Technologist at Kimberly Clark, one of the largest global consumer packaged goods companies.
In 2014, he was recognized as one of the “40 under 40” leading marketers in the industry by BrandInnovators and also received the CMO Programmatic Award by the CMOClub. Harvard Business Review (HBR) and the Economist profiled him as the model Chief Marketing Technologist in 2014. He sits on various Advisory Boards including the IBM’s CMO Council, BrandInnovators and Global MarTech Conferences besides being a mentor for several start-ups.
