Leader’s Corner: Ashish Babu, Chief Marketing Officer, TCS

Exclusive insights from CMO 100 Winner Ashish Babu

Explore the journey and insights of Ashish Babu, Chief Marketing Officer at TCS, in this exclusive Leader’s Corner interview.

Meet the leader running global markets for Tata Consultancy Services. 

Ashish Babu, currently Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Global Markets, has led the TCS brand, marketing and communications strategy for more than 16 years. Throughout his extensive career at TCS, Ashish has taken on roles ranging from Head of Communications - India to CMO for Europe & UK. 

Leader's Corner insights with Ashish Babu:

• Awards and achievements
• The role of storytelling in marketing
• Decisions decisions

Watch the full Leader's Corner interview below:

Awards and achievements

In his role, Ashish leads strategic initiatives across areas including North America, Europe and the UK. In his previous roles, Ashish worked in high-performing teams, collecting more than 70 awards for their contributions to branding, communications, storytelling and other areas of marketing.

His latest achievement? Becoming a HotTopics B2B CMO 100 2024 Winner, collecting his trophy in front of a live marketing c-suite audience at Abbey Road Studios. “It’s a privilege and an honour… the most important thing is to be in a tribe of similar folks who have different backgrounds, different thought processes. But I think all of us are trying to build a better world.”

The role of storytelling in marketing

In the B2B world, the goal is to create brand ambassadors and make clients famous - which is a key focus in marketing strategies for Babu. 

“I take the complex things and make them easy. So the role of storytelling has been fundamental for me and that's what I cherish in this opportunity. I think we're in the business of convincing.” 

Babu noted the time where he successfully convinced a CEO to gain global fame, which led to interest from many other global CEOs wanting similar recognition. “It was an audacious ask. But once we made him famous, we had a lining up of many global CEOs who wanted to be famous because they're in their journey.”

Decisions decisions

Tough decision-making is part of the job when you become a senior marketing executive.

Ashish Babu is one of those leaders who enjoys a good challenge. Coming from a communications background, his role involved constantly speaking to journalists: “I loved issues and crises and pitching a new idea.”

On the other hand, after being offered the Chief Marketing Officer role he realised that he would have to transition from managing three to ten functions, indicating a significant increase in responsibility and the baggage that comes with it—it would require a spotlight on how to drive further growth within the community and adopting a more customer-centric mindset.

“I think that was a brilliant opportunity for me. It was hard but I think in the long term what it's done is it's shown me that I can move from output to impact. That's what this role has done for me.”

Watch the full Leader’s Corner interview with Ashish Babu to learn more about his marketing career and his thoughts on The Studio at Abbey Road.

Leader's Corner: Check out our line-up of HotTopics Leader's Corner and Leader's Profile Interviews.

HotTopics produces interviews with a diverse array of leaders, C-suite marketing and technology leaders. These take place in-person during our much-anticipated flagship event, The Studio, and virtually with leaders based all over the world. Learn more about what makes these leaders tick, and their experiences and expertise that have supported them in their careers so far.