Heeru Dingra
Chief Executive Officer | WATConsult
Heeru Dingra is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of WATConsult, the globally awarded hybrid digital agency from the house of Dentsu Aegis Network. She started her journey nine years ago here and today leads a team of 400+ people across offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
Having studied from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Heeru has an in-depth understanding of Mergers and Acquisitions and played a key role in the acquisition process of the Company.
She holds over 18 years of knowledge, expertise and experience in the finance sector, and has worked with leading financial institutions like ICICI, Citibank and Indiabulls.
At WATConsult, she is the quintessential problem solver and the mind behind some of the most memorable company-wide initiatives that encompass both clients and employees. Her belief in WATConsult’s ability to use digital to make a difference has birthed projects ranging from wacky to socially conscious. Some of the key projects include Powerless Queen, KidsNotForSale, Give Subtitles to Suicide amongst others.
She is the master mind behind launching various HR initiatives like Snapplication – a campaign to hire freshers and young talent via Snapchat; PlayAgency – an innovative board-game, which allows players to run an ad agency and experience all the highs and lows of it, WAT’s Your Big Idea, a digital ideation competition across educational institutes of India.
In her current role, she overlooks the entire executive duties of the agency and ensures smooth operations across offices. Her key aim is to keep a balance between work and employee well-being.
Heeru has been featured in the 100 Top HR Minds (India) in 2018by CHRO Asia. She bagged the ‘Businesswoman of the Year’ award at Business Leader awards and ‘Woman Super Achiever’ title by CMO Asia. Under her leadership, WATConsult also won the ‘The Best Workplace and People Development’ award at Business Leader awards.
She has also judged various categories at awards shows like MiAwards by Afaqs, Goafest, EDMI, and WINA World Independent Advertising Awards.
She is a strong believer in gender equality and strives to provide equal platforms to everyone for growth and success. A guest lecturer at leading management institutions like Amity University, Xavier Institute of Communications, Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, Symbiosis School of Media & Communication, MICA, IIT and others.Being a believer of ‘continous learning’ herself, she promotes the same amongst her employees too, by letting the agency offer certified courses from XLRi, MICA and ISB in order to continuously enhancing their skills. She also believes in getting her employees trained at every point, may that be via ace leadership coach, Saloni Suri or the well-known trainer and a leader of creativity enhancement, Yonathan Dominitz. In her free time Heeruenjoys reading, traveling and staying fit.