Abhishek Sawant

Head – Talent Acquisition, MSL India | Centre of Excellence – Talent Acquisition

• Lead the Talent Acquisition function for MSL India, managing end-to-end hiring across PR, Digital, and Public Advocacy businesses.
• Head and develop a lean TA team, delivering hires across junior to senior leadership levels.
• Partner closely with the CEO, MDs, COOs, and senior leadership to align talent strategy with business priorities.
• Work with the CFO on manpower planning and budgeting, translating workforce plans into actionable hiring strategies.
• Successfully closed senior leadership roles across PR and Digital verticals.
• Eliminated the use of external recruitment consultants, driving cost efficiencies and strengthening in-house TA capability.
• Built competition mapping and talent intelligence for PR and Digital agencies to maintain a strong external talent pipeline.
• Led salary benchmarking across PR and Digital agencies to ensure competitive compensation and offer positioning.
• Designed and maintained weekly hiring reports and monthly dashboards to provide leadership visibility on hiring progress and TAT.
• Reduced hiring TAT across all levels through process improvements and proactive stakeholder management.
• Supported hiring mandates for Publicis Groupe agencies including Leo Burnett, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis Production, and Digitas.
• Play a key role in annual campus hiring, recruiting from leading Communication and Media schools.