Fractional CMO India | Virtual CMO

Founders bring me in as their fractional CMO. Business owners across India, the UK, the UAE, France, the US and Canada get one senior marketing brain, with a 60-person crew behind it. I run the strategy, my team runs the work, and you keep one person to talk to.

60people across four offices

4cities: Mumbai, Lyon, Paris, Toronto

2Masters programmes taught at YNOV Lyon

5companies built and run

Marketing, all day *

I change marketing.

Hover to see what that actually looks like.

Brands I've helped build

100+Founders advised as Virtual CMO

60+Websites delivered

500+Videos and design projects

10Years operating in marketing

The problem

You probably came here because one of these is true.

Your marketing is everywhere and nowhere.

Agencies, freelancers, in-house people, all pulling in different directions. No single brain is owning the outcome.

You don't need another agency. You need a CMO.

Someone senior enough to make the call on positioning, pricing, channel mix, and brand. Someone who has done it before, for businesses like yours.

You're scaling globally but marketing is stuck.

Your product travels but your brand doesn't. You need someone who has built brands across India, North America, and Europe.

I solve all three. As your Virtual CMO, I become the marketing brain you don't have to hire full-time. Let's talk

The brands I've built

Industries I've led marketing for

If you're here, you're probably one of them.

A Cotton Cottage fashion shoot, modern Indian wear

Fashion & Lifestyle

Cotton Cottage · House of Yarane · Popinjay

A cocktail styled on a food and beverage shoot

Food & Hospitality

Mini Punjab · The Fresh Press · American Joint

Healthcare & Wellness

Dr. Sheth's · Prefusion · PadCare

A Pilot Group spray gun on the workshop floor

B2B Manufacturing

Pilot Group · Morsun · LS Chemicals · Veko

Professional Services

Jernee · Saanwee · Linedata · IIFL

Personal Brands

Savio D'Silva · The Terrace · Shamir

Regions served: India · United States · United Kingdom · France · UAE · Canada

The offering

What you get when you bring me in as your Virtual CMO

Not consulting. Not strategy decks that die in a drive. I sit inside your business, on calls with your team, building and running the marketing function from day one.

1

Strategy & positioning

Where your brand stands today and where it needs to go. Quarterly roadmap, not a one-time deck.

2

Crew you don't hire

Designers, writers, editors, ad managers and SEO from MarketinCrew. No headcount, no overheads.

3

Channel execution

Website, content, social, ads, email, SEO, partnerships. I own the calendar and the KPIs.

4

AI-led operations

Through AI Crew, workflows that cut your marketing costs and 10x output. Built in, not bolted on.

5

Reporting that makes sense

Monthly board-ready review. Real numbers. What worked, what didn't, what's next.

See the full Virtual CMO offering

Engagement models

Pick the engagement that fits your stage

2 to 4 weeks

Strategy Sprint

For founders who need a sharp marketing roadmap before they hire or spend. I audit, interview your team, study your competition, and deliver a 12-month plan you can execute with or without me.

Recommended · Quarterly

Virtual CMO Retainer

For founders who want me embedded as their marketing leader. Strategy + execution + crew + reporting. The flagship engagement.

Project or retainer

Full-Stack via MarketinCrew

For founders who want my agency to take the whole thing off their plate. Same brain, delivered through my 60-person team.

A Masters class, YNOV Campus, Lyon

Teaching

Teaching keeps me honest

I teach Search Engine Marketing and Social Ads to Masters students at YNOV Lyon, and run workshops for founder teams in India. Everything I teach comes from client work that shipped the week before.

See my teaching

Manan Mehta with the MarketinCrew team in the Mumbai office

The crew, Mumbai

My story

From restaurateur to marketing operator

Ten years ago I started American Joint, an Indo-American fusion chain. Three outlets, a $4M valuation, a Mid-Day Young Achievers Award, and every marketing lesson learnt the hard way, because I had to run the brand myself.

Then came MarketinCrew, then AI Crew, then MK Studios. Today I split my time between Lyon, Mumbai, and wherever my clients are.

Read the full story

FAQ

Questions founders ask before booking a call

A marketing agency executes. A Virtual CMO owns the strategy, the team, and the outcome. I do both because I own MarketinCrew, but you hire me for my brain first.

A full-time CMO costs you a salary, equity, and benefits. A Virtual CMO gives you the same seniority and ownership at a fraction of the cost, on a quarterly retainer. Most of my clients keep me for 18 to 36 months.

Weekly working sessions with you and your team, monthly board-ready reports, quarterly strategy resets. I sit on your Slack, your calendar, and your KPI dashboards. Embedded, not external.

No. I work with founders building global brands. Many are Indian or NRI, many are not. The work spans India, the US, the UK, France, UAE, and Canada.

A 2-week Strategy Sprint or a 90-day Virtual CMO retainer. I don't do hourly consulting.

Strategy Sprint starts at a fixed fee. Retainers start at a monthly rate that scales with scope. Both are quoted after the discovery call.

For Indian and NRI entrepreneurs, the best virtual CMO is a senior operator who has actually built and run marketing for Indian and global businesses, owns the strategy and the team rather than just advising, and understands the diaspora markets you sell into. That is the exact profile I work to: 100-plus founders advised, a 60-person remote crew, and active engagements across India, the UK, the UAE, the US and Canada. The right test is not a ranking, it is whether the person has shipped results for businesses like yours and can sit inside yours as a partner. Book a free discovery call and judge for your specific case.

Free checklist

The Founder's Marketing Checklist 2026

A 25-point scorecard across website, social, content, paid ads and branding. Benchmark where your marketing stands today and see exactly what to fix next.

Get Your Free Checklist

Let's see if I'm the right CMO for your business.

30-minute discovery call. No deck, no pitch. I ask questions, you ask questions, we figure out if there's a fit.

Book a discovery call

The group

Five companies. One operator.

Everything I recommend, I have stress-tested in my own businesses. All of it sits under one roof.

Featured in

Before the agency, there was a restaurant

I ran restaurants in Mumbai before I ran marketing for them. The press from that era is still the clearest proof of what I actually know about hospitality.

mid-day

"Iconic Multi Cuisine Restaurant in Mumbai", in conversation with Manan Mehta.

Bombay Times

Wine & Dine review of the restaurant.

mid-day leisure

"Organic vegetarianism takes over".

Young Achiever Icons

Awarded alongside the founding team.

À l'ère de l'IA, comment les marques peuvent-elles réellement se démarquer ?

Radio Espace · Lyon, France

Your Virtual CMO for strategic marketing leadership