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IIGC Seats 20 CMOs And CEOs At The Influence Table, With Rajiv Makhni

Ad Tribe! Bureau2 min read
Rajiv Makhni, technology journalist and creator, joining IIGC's The Influence Table

The Indian Influencer Governing Council will host The Influence Table, an invitation-only gathering of 20 senior CMOs and CEOs and three influencers, at DLF Golf & Country Club in Gurugram on 7 October 2026. Technology journalist and creator Rajiv Makhni is among the named participants.

  • Organiser: Indian Influencer Governing Council (IIGC)
  • Event: The Influence Table, invitation-only
  • Date: 7 October 2026
  • Venue: DLF Golf & Country Club, Gurugram
  • Format: one table and a chef-curated breakfast; no stage and no panels
  • At the table: 20 senior CMOs and CEOs and three influencers
  • Companies represented: Nestlé, Dabur, Philips, Versuni, iQOO, Kenstar, Pizza Hut and Wozoyo, among others
  • Named influencer: Rajiv Makhni, who is also a founding member of IIGC's council

What The Influence Table Is Trying To Do

Replace the panel with a conversation. IIGC chairman Sahil Chopra framed the idea as putting the people shaping influence across one table "not on a stage", and argued that twenty leaders and three voices can produce more meaningful dialogue than a room full of panels.

The topics on the table are the relationship between brands, creators, culture, technology and consumer influence. The release does not name the executives attending, only the companies they come from, and so far the only individual named is Makhni.

Who Is Hosting, And Who Is Featured

IIGC launched in February 2025 as an industry body for influencer marketing, and its site lists a code of standards, an influencer rating and a certification programme among its work. Chopra, its chairman, is also founder and chief executive of the digital and influencer marketing company iCubesWire.

Makhni, billed in the release as the featured name, is listed on IIGC's own site as a founding member of its council. That is worth knowing when reading "featuring": he is part of the organisation convening the table, not an outside guest invited to it.

Why A Smaller Room Makes Sense For This Industry

Influencer marketing in India has plenty of stages already. What is harder to find is candid agreement between the people paying for it and the people doing it, on disclosure, measurement and what a fair rate looks like. Those conversations rarely happen openly on a panel with a live audience and a sponsor wall.

The trade-off is visibility. A closed, invitation-only breakfast is valuable to the twenty people in the room and invisible to everyone else unless something is published afterwards. For a body whose stated purpose is structure and credibility across the ecosystem, the useful test of The Influence Table will be whether anything from it reaches the brands and creators who were not invited.

IIGC's work is set out at iigc.org. More news.

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