Abhinav Kumar

Mr. Abhinav Kumar serves as the Chief Marketing Officer for Tata Consultancy Services, leading a global, diverse and gender balanced team of 600 professionals in 55 countries, who drive the brand, reputation, relationships, and growth for the company. Under his leadership, this team has been recognized with over 150 awards for excellence in Communications & Marketing, establishing the company as the #1 fastest growing brand in the IT Services Industry over the previous decade. The brand value of the company has risen exponentially from US$ 2.3 billion in 2010 to US$ 19.2 billion in 2024. Its brand awareness among executives went up by 2X to 84% in the same period, it has consistently held a Top 3 industry position in terms of media share and been rated as #1 in customer satisfaction for 10 years in a row. All these efforts led the company to be recognized as a “Superbrand” in its top two markets - the US & the UK, and at its APAC headquarters - Singapore. During this tenure, Abhinav has overseen a massive expansion in the brand sponsorship strategy to create a US$350 million portfolio which has included tie-ups with some of the world’s premier firms including the Ferrari, Ducati and Jaguar teams in motorsports, the Dutch Open golf tournament, the Garmin-Cervelo cycling team and over 14 major running events including the TCS NewYork City Marathon and TCS London Marathon. He holds executive responsibility for the company’s relationships with several multilateral bodies, including the European Union, and with the World Economic Forum. Over the past three years from 2021-2023, Abhinav was regularly featured in the Influence 100 list, being rated among the world’s most high-impact global CMOs and CCOs. In 2020, he was recognized by Reputation Today magazine as one of the Top 20 global communications leaders. In 2019, Abhinav was accorded the SABRE award in London, for outstanding lifetime career achievement as a CMO. Over a 21-year career, Abhinav has been part of a leadership team that has scaled the company 41X times, from a US$ 700 million to a US$29 billion business, and from a workforce of 18,000 to 625,000. He has served in several key leadership positions in this journey, including as the CMO for Internal Markets (2017-2023), CMO for Europe (2011-2017), CCO for Europe (2008-2011) and CMO for Latin America. He was also part of the corporate team that worked on the company’s US$ 1.2 billion IPO in 2004. Profile Abhinav holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta and a honors degree in Economics from Delhi University. He is a member of the World Economic Forum CMO Council, the Wall Street Journal CMO Network and the UN Global Company CMO Think Lab. Abhinav serves as a board member at EIBC (Europe India Business Council), Global Advisory Board member of the IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), Member of IMD Business School’s CMO Roundtable, Member of Ipsos Mori’s Reputation council, Advisory board Member of the Think Tank Free Trade Europa, Advisory Board Member of ThinkYoung, Customer Advisory Board Member of ON24 and Relayto, and a Member of the Global Communications Director Network (GCDN) in Switzerland. Based out of the firm’s Brussels office, Abhinav has lived and worked in six countries (Belgium, Chile, France, India, Switzerland and Uruguay) and speaks two European languages - Spanish and French. He is a regular speaker at various universities, parliaments, and industry events worldwide on communications, branding, trade and economic issues. He has two sons, with whom he shares a passion for discovering the world and for the sport of cricket, and a wife who is a Career Strategist and Executive Coach.