Puneet Sharma Named Managing Director Of NielsenIQ India
NielsenIQ has appointed Puneet Sharma as managing director for India, effective 30 September 2026 and based in Mumbai.
- Role: managing director, India, NielsenIQ
- Effective: 30 September 2026, based in Mumbai
- Remit: NIQ India's commercial strategy and business operations, including client relationships and market expansion
- Experience: more than two decades across consumer and service businesses
- Most recently: sales director at Kenvue
What Puneet Sharma Brings From The Other Side
The career is almost entirely client side: leadership roles at J&J and Kenvue, The Coca-Cola Company, Bacardi, BCCL, Aircel and Carrier, spanning commercial strategy, sales, customer engagement and go-to-market transformation.
That is an unusual profile for a measurement business, and a deliberate one. The people who buy retail measurement are commercial leaders in consumer companies, and someone who has sat in that chair knows which parts of the data actually change a decision and which parts are bought because they always have been.
Why That Matters For This Category Now
Measurement in India is harder than it was. Quick commerce has added a channel that barely existed five years ago, direct to consumer brands sell through their own platforms, and traditional trade remains a very large share that is expensive to track accurately.
A client-side background is useful here because the hard question is not how to collect more data. It is which gaps a consumer company will genuinely pay to close.
The Shape Of The Brief
The role covers commercial strategy and business operations, including client relationships and market expansion, which reads as a growth mandate rather than an operational one.
Most recently Sharma was sales director at Kenvue, working on commercial strategy, customer and channel partnerships and business transformation. Before Kenvue the roles spanned several sectors, covering commercial strategy, sales, customer engagement, go-to-market transformation and team development.
That spread is the argument for the appointment. A measurement business sells to companies in all of those categories at once, and the person running it has now been the buyer in most of them. More appointments.