Paru Minocha appointed executive director at Synovate

The market research arm of the Aegis Group, Synovate, has promoted its director, Paru Minocha, as executive director. She will be responsible for the overall management of its India business.

Minocha, who is an alumna of the Xavier Institute of Management Studies, Bhubaneswar, has worked extensively with several other research firms. She started her career with ORG MARG in 1995 as an executive and spent five years there before moving to BMFI. At BMFI, she was branch head and played a pivotal role in setting up the Delhi office. In 2003, Synovate acquired BMFI; Minocha was promoted to director within a year.

Minocha will report to chief executive officer for South Asia, Tim Balbirnie. Balbirnie says it was Minocha’s longstanding and talented leadership that made it easy to promote her. He adds, “Her research expertise and management experience will contribute to a client focused approach and will help drive our very important India operation.”

Minocha’s predecessor, Alok Shanker, CEO, has taken a sabbatical. Shanker is on leave until April 2008 and will resume work in a new role. Sources say that he could be appointed to a special position. Whether the position will be in India or not cannot be commented upon as yet.

Synovate, which started off four years ago, operates from six continents in 51 different countries.