Prashanth Balarama has been appointed as the senior director of communications and CSR at Honeywell.   Having worked at IBM for 27 years, Balarama has strong experience in communications, strategy, marketing communications, and brand journalism. He joined IBM in 1996 as a communications specialist for India and handled their marketing and communications across South Asia and the Asia Pacific.   Most recently, he was the global geo communications lead of AI, responsible for developing and executing the communications strategy and brand positioning for IBM’s AI business units worldwide.  

Shreela Roy has taken on the role of lead - digital communications at RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group, based in Kolkata. In a LinkedIn post, Roy shared her excitement about transitioning to the corporate side after 17 years in communications. She emphasised her focus on digital storytelling at one of India's fastest-growing conglomerates, saying, “From leadership to thought leadership, from new media to new-age mediums, at RPSG Group, I will be sprinkling digital gold dust to the content brewpot.” Roy’s career began at Ogilvy PR in 2007 and spans roles at Hill+Knowlton Strategies, HDFC Life, Edelman, and Ketchum Sampark. She also led corporate and financial practices at Genesis BCW and served as vice president of financial services at MSLGroup. Roy expressed gratitude to her colleagues and mentors for their support throughout her career journey. She can be reached at shreela.roy@rpsg.in.  

Varsha Chainani has been appointed senior vice president and group head of corporate communications and brand at Vedanta Group. Before joining Vedanta, she was the group head of corporate communications at Adani Group for two years.     With more than 30 years of experience in corporate communications, marketing, reputation management, branding, content management, digital PR and crisis management, Varsha has worked across the marketing and corp comm division at IBM for 10 years, before joining Abbott Laboratories as director of public affairs.   Chainani was also a senior vice president of group communications at Mahindra Group for more than 6 years.    

Effective immediately, SBS has named Leah Boonthanom as its new head of corporate communications. Boonthanom, who has been with the organisation for nearly three years and played a key role in rebranding SBS Radio to SBS Audio, succeeds Nic Christensen, who will now transition to a consulting role. In a LinkedIn post, Christensen shared, “I can’t think of anyone better to take the responsibility for leading the narrative for the multicultural public broadcaster.” According to a Mumbrella report, Clare O’Neil, SBS' director of corporate affairs, lauded Boonthanom’s experience and thanked Christensen for his significant contributions to strengthening SBS’ media presence. Boonthanom expressed her excitement about continuing to showcase SBS's storytelling and its unique role as a multicultural public broadcaster.  

Amrit Anand has been appointed head of communications at Zupee.   Anand announced his new role on linkedIn, where he also shared his vision for the position. "I lead communication strategies to ensure consistent messaging and branding across all channels. I drive PR campaigns to enhance brand visibility and public perception, positioning the company as an industry thought leader. Additionally, I oversee stakeholder engagement, manage crisis communication, and analyze performance to continuously improve our impact," he stated.   Before joining Zupee, Anand served as deputy general manager of Corporate Communications at Paytm for over five and a half years. He brings a wealth of experience from his previous roles with prominent organizations such as Escorts Ltd., Walmart, Bank of America, ReNew Power, and Paytm.  

Former Salesforce PR peers Katie Dufficy and Katie Boysen have re-united to launch Smart In Public, a new podcast exploring PR and comms issues. Dufficy and Boysen (as they are wont to call each other) worked together at Salesforce in Australia, but both had their roles eliminated in cutbacks at the software giant over the last 18 months. With more time than usual on their hands, the pair decided to fulfill a long-held desire to start a podcast together. Boysen, who returned to the US in 2022 to become Salesforce’s Director of Global Communications, is currently consulting while Dufficy is looking for her next role. “We’ve always talked about doing a podcast and now we’re finally doing it,” Dufficy told Influencing. “We have a great rapport, and we’ve always said we think there’s a gap for a mix of comms and PR content, but with a bit of life and business and fun mixed in.” “And so suddenly I had some free time and [Boysen’s] doing consulting so yeah, it