Alap Ghosh joins Assembly as the global media agency’s first CEO of India

Assembly, the global media agency within the Stagwell network, is consolidating its presence in India with the appointment of Alap Ghosh as its first India CEO. Ghosh, who takes charge on August 1, will be based in Mumbai and report to Matt Adams, Assembly’s global chief operating officer.

The agency is also folding in Brand New Galaxy’s (BNG) digital commerce operations and aligning its local delivery teams under a singular regional structure. The recent moves signal a deeper commitment to India's fast-evolving media and marketing landscape—and also a bid to streamline what had been a fragmented South Asia footprint.

Ghosh, formerly head of data and technology partnerships at Google India, brings over two decades of experience spanning ad tech, programmatic platforms, and martech. His earlier roles include leadership stints at Jellyfish and founding a data consultancy.

"I'm excited to join Assembly at such a pivotal moment," said Ghosh in a prepared statement. "India is moving fast—creatively, culturally, and digitally—and we have a real opportunity to build an offering that delivers for today's clients."

His remit includes merging Assembly's operations in Mumbai and Bangalore to create a unified agency that covers media, commerce, tech and creative. The appointment is one of several changes Assembly has undertaken in the region in the past three months.

In July, Assembly named Shivaprasad Nair to head its global delivery function—a role that combines talent and tech execution across Asia-Pacific, with teams based in India and the Philippines. Nair, based in Bangalore, reports to Matt Adams and previously held roles at Publicis, Google, Oracle, and Infosys.

The firm also opened a new office in India, led by Anish Daniel—formerly of Wavemaker and Isobar—to oversee operations and local clients such as Lenovo, Fossil and Estée Lauder.

Assembly CEO Rick Acampora framed the new leadership structure as a necessary step to "build something genuinely differentiated" in a "key growth market."

But the restructuring has also been about rationalising assets. In June, Stagwell rebranded BNG as Assembly and folded its digital commerce capabilities into the broader agency. More than 400 BNG specialists were absorbed in the transition, including its former CEO Piotr Morkowski.

ADK Global, another network managed by ADK Holdings Inc. and previously acquired by Stagwell, has also been subsumed. It now operates under the name ADK Global Powered by Assembly.

While existing local leaders retain control of client relationships, the rebrand places all teams under one operational umbrella with Assembly's proprietary experience engine, STAGE, at the core. The engine promises predictive AI tools, media optimisation, scaled creative and commerce solutions—though specifics on how these are deployed in-market remain unclear.

"This isn’t just about scale," Acampora said. "It’s about delivering smarter, more connected omni experiences."

For marketers watching from the sidelines, the messaging is familiar: fewer silos, more integration, and a pledge to align brand performance with creative and commerce. The agency’s positioning—centred on its ‘Brand Performance Planning’ model and the symbolism of its ‘+’ logo, which it refers to as the ORAD—leans heavily on the duality of branding and performance media.

Behind the branding jargon lies a more pragmatic agenda: win a bigger slice of India’s marketing budgets as digital penetration and commerce accelerate across Tier 2 and 3 markets.

India, with its young population and increasing consumer base, is not just a growth market for multinational brands—it’s also a testing ground for how regional execution scales across the APAC corridor. Assembly’s regional CEO Richard Brosgill acknowledged as much, stating: "India has emerged as a key growth engine for the agency."

Stagwell’s global blueprint is centred on consolidating its acquired businesses into modular, scalable platforms that deliver creative, media, data and commerce under one roof. The playbook reflects wider industry moves: traditional holding groups like WPP and Publicis have also doubled down on integration to counter revenue leakage and simplify client engagement.

Assembly now claims more than 800 staff across Asia-Pacific, spanning 12 countries including Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore and Australia. Globally, it counts over 3,000 employees.

Yet with integration comes complexity. The merger of ADK and BNG into Assembly, the redeployment of senior talent, and the creation of overlapping leadership roles underscore the challenge of aligning legacy systems with new strategic intent.

India’s marketing ecosystem, for its part, remains highly competitive, with domestic agencies and consultancies offering tailored solutions at often lower costs. For Assembly, turning its regional ambitions into commercial reality will depend on how effectively its new leadership executes—not just how loudly it talks up its rebrand.

As global networks scramble to localise their operations without diluting their global brand promise, Assembly's India experiment may serve as a case study. The talent is in place. The infrastructure is being stitched together. The real test? Delivering value to clients in a market that knows how to ask tough questions—and expects quick returns.