Renuka Bala

Experience

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  Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd. (Times Group)

  Jun 2001 - Nov 2003

  Senior Officer

  🚀 Boosted profitability of Times Shipping Journal magazine by 200% within a year of managing the brand, making it the most profitable B2B publication in the portfolio.🚀 Successfully spearheaded the anniversary celebrations for the Times Shipping Journal, that was the biggest shipping industry event for The Times Group, attended by the who’s who of the shipping industry.🚀 Led sales for launch of Retail B2B magazine, titled Retail Biz, and generated revenue of over $15,000 from the maiden issue.🚀 Executed the immensely popular campaign “Shop Karo Pocket Bharo” and also launched it extremely profitably in a special feature newspaper supplement in Pune. Show less

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  Kuoni Global Travel Services

  Dec 2003 - Jul 2005

  Senior Marketing Manager

  🚀 Transformed the customer magazine resulting in a 400% increase in profitability within a year of takeover.🚀 Garnered the highest ever marketing promotions participation and revenue from South African partners such as the national and regional tourism boards, hotels, and attractions for SOTC.🚀 Executed a very successful joint promotional campaign with MTV for South Africa tourism board. 🚀 Identified as top-talent and put on a fast-track growth path in SOTC. Promoted from Manager to Senior Manager within a year of joining the organization. Show less

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  Cleartrip

  Jan 2006 - May 2007

  Senior Marketing Manager

  🚀 Ideated and executed Cleartrip’s first ever TV campaign including the concept and creation of the advertisement, budgeted the spends for creatives and media, finalized the TV channels, negotiated T&C and tracked ROI as the website site traffic zoomed over 300% within a fortnight of launch of the campaign. 🚀 Formed multiple exclusive partnerships deals with tourism boards airlines, hotels, ecommerce partners for customer promotions.🚀 Influenced and negotiated an unprecedented offering from Indian Airlines for Cleartrip. Kerala Tourism Board signed up for a joint promotional campaign even before Cleartrip website went live.🚀 Successfully executed official launch of Cleartrip including a press conference and 360-degree pan-India announcement campaign across newspapers, magazines, radio, BTL, billboards and online. Show less

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  Magic Bus

  Jun 2007 - Aug 2007

  Marketing Consultant

  🚀 Partnered with a leading R&D trainer from UK, Rob Collin Thomas to research feasibility for setting up an outdoor L&D training centre at the Magic Bus campus in Karjat, Maharashtra through meetings with reputed companies like Bain, MTV, Accenture Consulting etc. to get an understating of their requirements resulting in its eventual setup.🚀 Developed sales & marketing strategy for a Barclays co-branded credit card and for the first time onboarded affiliate partners to offer discounts and gifts in exchange for loyalty points earned from credit card use. Show less

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  Cox and Kings India

  Oct 2007 - Jan 2010

  Head Of Marketing

  🚀 Created marketing strategy to celebrate and monetize Cox & Kings 250th Anniversary celebrations and executed an immensely successful 360-degree pan-India destination marketing campaign, giving away 250 holidays to each country featured, across all media outlets – traditional and online.🚀 Influenced and onboarded tourism boards of Finland, Korea, Ireland and few others, who had not worked with Cox & Kings before in Indian market, and added new destinations.🚀 Built a marketing and strategic alliances team to create avenues for customer retention while subsidizing marketing & promotional cost by raising over $1 million from partners for annual campaigns🚀 Launched a newsletter that influenced 5X higher revenue than industry standard in its debut run.🚀 Commissioned Nicholas Courtney, a well-known historian from London (UK) along with other assisting historians and researchers in India, to write a coffee-table book on the lineage and company history. Show less

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  Tieka Designs Pvt. Ltd.

  Mar 2010 - Feb 2016

  Founder

  🚀 Pioneered the concept of a unique fusion brand of western wear for women, combining with the traditional fabrics sourced from different parts of India offering a local flavor of Punjab, Manipur, Gujarat, Assam, J&K, etc. 🚀 Bootstrapped and single handedly managed the show from concept to launch and business operations.🚀 Top-seller on Limeroad, a leading fashion e-com portal.🚀 Influenced a designer to co-invest in the venture.🚀 Developed a pan-India fabric and embroideries sourcing network, outsourced production to manufacturing units in Mumbai, created the brand’s online & social presence, product labelling, packaging, presence in exhibitions, partnerships with leading retail & e-com sites, in India & internationally, like Novica & Limeroad. Show less

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  FCM Travel India

  Mar 2016 - Mar 2019

  🚀 Boosted the FCM Brand by developing a thought leadership positioning, streamlining marketing and the sales pitch strategy and fore fronting crucial Request for Proposal (RFP) pitches worth over $12 million TVC while aiding all other RFP pitches for the corporate business which is the highest revenue grosser for FCM and contributes over 60% revenue🚀 Created market-specific strategies, trained resources and led business development for Hyderabad & Pune.🚀 Inducted in the org-wide talent pool of senior leaders.🚀 Driven by my passion and initiative, I started a women empowerment and leadership development program that has shaped up as a flagship org-wide program. Show less 🚀 Grossed 110% higher revenue than the targeted co-marketing activities by forming new partnerships and onboarding first-time partners like tourism boards, hotels & attractions, resulting in 4.5X higher sales YoY.🚀 Initiated the first ever collaborative campaign between competing tourism boards – Japan & Korea Tourism Boards – that subsequently were made an integral part of their tourism strategy for the Indian market.🚀 Managed pan-India marketing from strategy to execution for the Leisure and Forex businesses and ran 360-deg campaigns across print, radio, retail stores, email, social media, SEO, SEM, and public relations.🚀 Accelerated digital marketing effort resulting in 50% increase in enquiries, and 30% reduction in CAC for the Leisure business. 🚀 Launched new initiatives and campaigns around group travel, Franchisee Owned, Company Operated (FOCO), 24/48-hour sales, forex-branded travel money.🚀 Integrated Travel Tours brand into The Flight Centre Travel group’s leisure and forex brands post M&A.🚀 Successfully launched e-commerce website for Travel Money, a foreign exchange brand coupled with digital and retail store marketing. Show less

  • General Manager Marketing & Strategic Initiatives

    Nov 2017 - Mar 2019

  • National Marketing Manager

    Mar 2016 - Nov 2017
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  Claris Limited

  Jun 2019 - Oct 2021

  Vice President Marketing Communications

  Headed marketing & communications for Claris, and led the consolidation and digitalization of marketing operations across the holding company and three of its subsidiaries,◾️ Abellon – an integrated waste management company valued at $100 million with business interests in waste2energy, biomass pellets & equipment, extended producer responsibility, biofuel and solar energy.◾️ Claris Capital, a VC firm with AUM of $25 million.◾️ The Brihati Foundation, CSR arm of the Claris group.🚀 Optimized marketing budgets, costs and streamlined operations by reorganizing old organization structure by integrating Claris and Abellon marketing teams, and outsourcing tactical functions in media, advertising, communications, influencer relations and designing, to agencies across Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad.🚀 Created the marcom strategy for transitioning Claris from being a healthcare company to a holding company with interests in Abellon, Claris Capital, and Brihati Foundation and designed complete re-branding effort towards a marketing facelift for the group companies, including recreating each entity’s web presence and historical archives. 🚀 Aligned all internal sales, marketing and distribution teams (brand, product, category and cross-functional), across all businesses, to map their current and future needs and come up with the respective GTM strategies aligned to desired outcomes and objectives.🚀 Initiated the digital-first strategy for marketing and sales operations and evaluated marketing, sales and CRM automation tools such as Zoho, Adobe Experience Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Sprinklr, Buzzsumo, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Hootsuite, HubSpot, Google Ads, Linkedin Sales Navigator for implementation🚀 Across business interests developed strategic and actionable competitive intelligence insights on industry trends, market share, and competitor and adjacent market developments. Show less

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  Mamballys Royal Biscuit Factory

  Sept 2022 - now

  Fifth Generation Custodian