SONAL VERMA TAKES OVER AS MANAGING DIRECTOR AT ARC WORLDWIDE INDIA

Arc Worldwide India, part of Publicis Groupe, has appointed Sonal Verma as Managing Director to lead strategic growth and integrated brand experiences. Verma brings over two decades of expertise from Cheil India, Momentum Worldwide and Percept, strengthening Arc’s push to unify creative, digital and commerce capabilities across the Publicis ecosystem for clients.  

Sonal Verma has taken over as Managing Director at Arc Worldwide India, the brand experience agency within Publicis Groupe India, signalling a decisive leadership shift as the network sharpens its focus on integrated brand experiences and commercial growth. In her new mandate, she will steer Arc Worldwide India’s strategic direction while strengthening how clients tap into the Groupe’s creative, digital, and commerce capabilities. The appointment places her at the centre of Publicis Groupe’s collaborative ecosystem model, where cross-agency solutions increasingly shape the way brands connect with consumers.

Verma joins from Cheil India, where she spent nearly five years leading the Brand Experience practice, first as Vice President and later as Senior Vice President & Head. Her move caps a 20-plus year career across experiential marketing, brand activation, and integrated communications. She has previously held leadership roles at Momentum Worldwide as AVP & Country Lead for India, Percept D Mark as Associate Vice President for Experiential Marketing, and earlier stints at Blockkbuster Events & Entertainment, Showtime Events, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (The Times of India), NIS Sparta, and Evolv. This wide-ranging experience across agency networks, experiential platforms, and media organisations positions her to drive deeper brand engagement at a time when marketers are investing heavily in connected consumer experiences.

For Arc Worldwide India, the appointment underscores an ambition to scale its experiential and integrated solutions for brands within the Publicis fold, while pushing its mandate into new areas of growth. Industry observers see the move as a reinforcement of the Groupe’s broader emphasis on convergence between creativity, digital transformation, and commerce—an approach that has reshaped how clients brief, measure, and spend. Within this landscape, Verma’s blend of operational leadership and experiential expertise will likely play a pivotal role as Arc Worldwide navigates evolving consumer touchpoints and the rising demand for data-powered brand storytelling.