Huella Bets Big With New Sales Leader and SEA Expansion

Introduction

What does a company do when its India growth story starts attracting global attention? It builds the structure to match the ambition. Huella Services has announced the elevation of Pankajj Rai as Senior Vice President — Ad Sales, India, giving him national oversight across all products including NEXad, NewsroomAI, and AIgnite. Simultaneously, the company has established a new base in Singapore, marking its formal entry into Southeast Asia. For Indian marketers tracking the intersection of interactive CTV, AI-led advertising, and measurable performance, Huella's twin announcement is a signal worth decoding carefully.

The Big Announcement

Huella has made two significant announcements that together paint a clear picture of a company accelerating into its next growth phase.

On the leadership front, Pankajj Rai has been elevated to Senior Vice President — Ad Sales, India, with national oversight across Huella's full product portfolio. This includes NEXad, the company's interactive Connected TV platform, NewsroomAI, its AI-powered news content solution, and AIgnite, its creative intelligence offering. Rai brings over 18 years of broadcast and digital media experience, having previously served as Business Head for WION and Zee Business at Zee Media, and as National Sales Head at Qyou Media. His commercial track record spans marquee properties including Zee TV, Zee Cinema, and Zee Bollywood, with a strong revenue footprint across North and East India.

Under his national leadership, Huella has simultaneously structured empowered regional revenue heads across North India, West India, and South India — building a distributed but coordinated commercial engine designed for sustained growth.

On the expansion front, Huella has established a new operational base in Singapore as the foundation for its Southeast Asia push, targeting markets where demand for interactive CTV and creative intelligence platforms is growing rapidly.

What This Means for Your Brand

Huella's dual announcement — a senior sales leadership hire alongside an international expansion — tells a specific story about where AI-led and interactive advertising is heading in India and beyond.

For Indian advertisers and media planners, the most immediately relevant development is the structured national sales organisation Huella is building around its product suite. The appointment of dedicated regional revenue heads across North, West, and South India means that brands and agencies in tier-one and emerging metros will now have direct, accountable commercial relationships with Huella — rather than a centralised sales team managing everything from Mumbai.

For brands exploring interactive CTV advertising — a format that allows viewers to engage directly with ads on connected television screens — Huella's NEXad platform is one of the few India-built solutions operating at national scale. As CTV penetration grows across Indian urban households, interactive advertising formats are moving from experimental budgets to mainstream media plans.

For agency partners and media planners working with AI-driven content and advertising tools, the NewsroomAI and AIgnite products represent Huella's broader bet on automation-assisted creative and editorial workflows — a space seeing significant investment interest globally.

The contrarian view? International expansion and domestic restructuring happening simultaneously is ambitious. Execution discipline across both fronts will determine whether this becomes a growth story or a stretched one.

The Numbers Behind the News

India's Connected TV market is one of the fastest-growing advertising environments in the country, with CTV households estimated to cross 40 million by 2026 as smart TV penetration deepens across urban and semi-urban India. Interactive CTV — where viewers can click, scan, or engage with advertisements directly on their screens — represents the next frontier of measurable, high-attention advertising that traditional broadcast simply cannot replicate.

Southeast Asia adds another compelling dimension. Markets like Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines are experiencing rapid smart device adoption and streaming growth, creating demand for exactly the kind of interactive and AI-powered advertising infrastructure that Huella has been building in India.

Mayura Nayak, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Huella, framed the structural logic clearly: expansion without structure creates fragility. The simultaneous elevation of Pankajj Rai and the establishment of regional revenue leadership reflects a company that understands scaling requires foundations, not just ambition. That is a more mature growth philosophy than most early-stage ad-tech companies demonstrate at this stage.

The brands.in Perspective

Huella's announcement deserves more attention than a standard leadership appointment story typically receives. The combination of a senior sales hire, a structured national revenue organisation, and an international expansion into Southeast Asia — all announced together — suggests a company that has moved past the startup phase and is now operating with genuine institutional intent. India's interactive CTV and AI advertising space is still early enough that first-movers with the right commercial structure can define the category. Huella is making a clear bid to be that company. The Singapore move, in particular, signals that the ambition extends well beyond India's borders.

Key Takeaways for Marketers

• Pankajj Rai elevated to SVP Ad Sales with national oversight at Huella
• Products under his remit include NEXad, NewsroomAI, and AIgnite
• Regional revenue heads appointed across North, West, and South India
• Huella establishes Singapore base for Southeast Asia market entry
• Interactive CTV and AI-led advertising are Huella's core growth pillars

FAQ

Q: What does Pankajj Rai's role at Huella involve? As Senior Vice President — Ad Sales India, Pankajj Rai leads national revenue operations across all Huella products including NEXad interactive CTV, NewsroomAI, and AIgnite. He oversees regional sales heads across North, West, and South India and works closely with founders on strategic growth and partner development.

Q: What is Huella's NEXad platform? NEXad is Huella's interactive Connected TV advertising solution, enabling viewers to engage directly with advertisements on smart television screens. It is designed to deliver measurable, high-attention advertising outcomes for brands as CTV penetration grows across Indian and Southeast Asian households.

Q: Why is Huella expanding into Southeast Asia? Huella's Singapore base positions the company to serve fast-growing Southeast Asian markets where demand for interactive CTV and AI-powered creative intelligence platforms is rising rapidly. The expansion leverages Huella's established India foundation while targeting new geographies with similar digital growth trajectories.

Closing

Is interactive CTV advertising on your media plan for 2026 — or are you still waiting for the format to prove itself at scale in India? Share your perspective in the comments. Follow brands.in for daily brand intelligence, ad-tech updates, and the media industry moves shaping India's most dynamic advertising categories.