CENTRICK RESHUFFLES LEADERSHIP AS ROY MENEZES BECOMES CEO, YASH CHAUHAN TAKES CREATIVE HELM  

Centrick has elevated Roy Menezes to CEO and appointed Yash Chauhan as chief creative officer, alongside new creative leadership roles for Zara Daruwala and Nathan Fernandes. The reshuffle strengthens the agency’s design and technology-led capabilities as it pursues ambitious 10-year goals and expands across multiple sectors, including mobility, finance, fashion, and education.

Centrick has announced a new leadership structure that underscores the independent agency’s ambitions for the coming decade, with a shift that places long-time creative leader Roy Menezes at the helm as chief executive officer and elevates Yash Chauhan to chief creative officer. The moves mark a formal internal realignment at a company that has steadily expanded its portfolio and capabilities since its inception, navigating through a fast-evolving marketing landscape marked by digital acceleration, diversified client expectations, and the emergence of new creative technologies.

Menezes, who had been serving as partner and chief creative officer, has been one of the agency’s most visible anchors since its founding. Over the years, he played a critical role in shaping Centrick’s client approach, moving beyond project-driven engagements to build long-term, retainer-led partnerships across a surprising breadth of categories. As the company broadened its scope into verticals such as education, mobility, finance, fashion, engineering, logistics, corporate and commerce, Menezes was closely involved in integrating processes, managing delivery, and ensuring that growth did not compromise creative integrity. In many ways, colleagues suggest, his move into the CEO seat simply recognises responsibilities he has informally managed for years. “Roy’s elevation to CEO is really a formalisation of the role he has been playing since Centrick came into being,” said founding partner Vistasp Hodiwala, noting that the announcement reflects continuity rather than disruption.

With Menezes shifting focus to the broader leadership mandate, the creative baton now passes to Yash Chauhan, who steps into the chief creative officer role after nearly five years of overseeing aesthetics at the studio. Chauhan’s promotion represents both a generational continuity and a reaffirmation of Centrick’s design-first ethos. His tenure at the agency has been marked by an insistence on visual consistency and an appetite for experimentation during a time when design has become central to brand differentiation across platforms. According to co-founder Vikram Gaikwad, Chauhan was indispensable during some of the agency’s most challenging growth periods. “Early on, Yash has been instrumental in maintaining, and consistently uplifting, Centrick’s visual quality and creative standards,” Gaikwad said. He also credited Chauhan—alongside newly elevated chief operating officer Malavika Shah—with helping steady the agency through what he described as “some of the toughest and craziest periods the industry has faced.” Gaikwad added that Chauhan’s “creativity, dedication, and leadership continue to inspire everyone around him.”

Beyond the two headline promotions, Centrick’s restructuring also refreshes the second line of creative leadership. Zara Daruwala, who has been associated with the agency since 2020 and recently returned after a stint in Spain, takes on the role of creative director – art. Meanwhile, Nathan Fernandes assumes the role of creative director – copy, a pairing that signals a continued emphasis on strengthening integrated creative craft across formats and audiences. The appointments, insiders believe, reflect a long-term strategy rather than a momentary shuffle: a commitment to creating a stable, forward-facing leadership bench at a time when agencies in India and globally are grappling with talent volatility and shifting client expectations around brand experience and digital content.

While personnel changes often dominate headlines, the underlying context for Centrick’s escalation of creative leadership is the sharper technological turn the agency is making. Gaikwad said the company has been investing in new talent pools spanning motion design, three-dimensional design, technology-driven image generation, and user experience. The blend is telling: motion and 3D point to enhanced storytelling capability for platforms such as gaming, commerce, virtual production, and digital-first campaigns, while investments in computational creativity reflect the rising role of AI-assisted image workflows in campaign development and content scale. UX design, meanwhile, increasingly influences how brands show up across touchpoints, from mobile apps to retail and shopper journeys.

With these developments, Centrick has positioned itself for a decade-long horizon rather than a quarterly one. Gaikwad noted that the agency has set “ambitious 10-year goals” and expects its refreshed leadership structure to help meet them. The announcements collectively signal not just a rearrangement of roles, but a continuation of the agency’s hypothesis that strong creative stewardship, supported by strategic operational leadership and emerging technology, will define the next phase of India’s independent agency ecosystem.