Balaji Vaidyanathan is a global marketing leader with over 20 years of insightful experience in brand, advertising, digital, content and storytelling.
In his current role since February 2019, Balaji is responsible for building the marketing value proposition and growing Franklin Templeton’s brand and digital footprint for the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) region, based out of Dubai. Additionally, as a core member of the EMEA Marketing leadership team, he also leads brand and social strategy for the broader EMEA market.
Prior to this, since February 2010, Balaji was Deputy Head – Marketing for Franklin Templeton India based out of Mumbai. In that role, he was responsible for multi-million $ budgets and leading all key marketing initiatives including brand, advertising, media-planning, investor education, events and advisor engagement. In the initial part of his career, he was associated in various capacities with the Edelweiss Group, Lotus Mutual Fund and the Aditya Birla Group all based in India.
Balaji has been one of the early adopters of leveraging gamification, content marketing and storytelling in the mutual fund industry to promote investor education in the online space. His deep understanding of consumer marketing and customer life-cycle journeys have won him dozens of awards globally across creativity, content, innovation and effectiveness.
Balaji is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK and holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi. He also holds a Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing and has completed multiple Leadership Development Programs with the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow.
Balaji is passionate about and actively involved in growing the marketing community and sharing industry best practices with students and peers. He has been a jury member for several prestigious awards and a speaker at various panels and forums including media houses, marketing summits and business schools in India and the Middle East.
