Asia-Pacific Power List 2020: Sapna Chadha, Google

Sapna Chadha

Senior country marketing director of India and Southeast Asia
Google
Singapore

There’s certainly no shortage of people in the industry willing to sing Sapna Chadha’s praises.

Chadha has been a key marketer at Google for nearly six years, first joining as head of SMB marketing in India in 2014 and quickly rising through the ranks to lead marketing at two of Google’s crucial growth regions. India and Southeast Asia will account for a big portion of Google’s overarching goal to reach the ‘next billion users’, speaking to the importance of Chadha’s work.

The former American Express marketer’s achievements over the past year alone are probably more than most marketers hope to achieve in a decade. Whether it's championing Asia-first product developments such as Maps Offline and a Google Lens feature that allows people use their camera to translate to their own local language; managing the local rollout of platforms like YouTube Music and Premium; launching offline products like Phone Line with Google Assistant in Indonesia and India; and leading a campaign to drive uptake of Google Pay in India—the list goes on.

Particularly noteworthy is Chadha’s role in helping to launch Bolo, an app that teaches children how to read without requiring access to the internet. The product, first launched in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, has since been rolled out to 180 countries globally—a prime example of the Asia-first innovation that Chadha champions.

Chadha is described by colleagues as a “change advocate”, which is evident in both her business achievements and her efforts championing diversity and inclusion. She is an executive sponsor of the Internet Saathi program, which has equipped millions of Indian women with digital literacy tools, and runs internal programmes to champion rising female stars. She is also on the India and APAC boards of the Mobile Marketing Association and a long-serving jury member of the APAC Effies and Smarties.

Chadha can be found on Twitter at: @SappyChadha