AI Commerce Startup Glu Appoints Neha Sharma Katyal as Head of Growth for India

Glu, an AI commerce company describing itself as the “Decision Layer for Agentic Commerce,” has appointed digital media and advertising veteran Neha Sharma Katyal as its Head of Growth for India. Katyal will report directly to founder and CEO Rahul Pandey and take charge of the company's growth strategy, market expansion and strategic partnerships as Glu builds out its presence in India's evolving AI commerce ecosystem.

The appointment lands at a pivotal moment for brand discovery in India: as AI assistants and conversational search increasingly mediate how consumers find, compare and choose products, Glu is positioning itself as infrastructure that helps brands remain visible, trusted and competitive inside AI-generated responses rather than traditional search results.

Katyal brings more than 18 years of leadership experience across digital media, advertising and technology, having held senior commercial roles at Disney+ Hotstar (now part of JioStar), The Trade Desk, Spotify and Twitter, now X. Across those roles, she focused on building high-growth businesses, developing strategic partnerships and helping brands navigate shifting consumer behaviour and digital ecosystems — a background Glu is betting translates directly to the current shift toward AI-mediated commerce.

“AI is fundamentally changing how consumers discover, evaluate and choose brands,” said Rahul Pandey, Glu's founder and CEO, announcing the appointment. “As AI becomes the new interface for commerce, Glu is building the intelligence infrastructure that enables brands to remain visible, trusted and competitive. Neha brings deep expertise in scaling and navigating industry-defining shifts. Her leadership will be instrumental as we strengthen our relationships with brands and agencies, expand our presence in India and global markets, and continue building a world-class leadership team.”

In her new role, Katyal will lead Glu's go-to-market strategy in India, strengthen the company's relationships with brands and agencies, drive customer acquisition and help build out its commercial organisation as the company scales domestically and internationally. The mandate reflects a broader industry shift: as traditional search-engine optimisation gives way to what some in the industry are calling “answer engine optimisation,” companies like Glu are racing to establish themselves as the infrastructure layer brands rely on to stay relevant inside AI-driven buying journeys.

“Glu is at the forefront of AI transformation, helping brands build visibility and influence in AI-driven commerce,” Katyal said of her appointment, signalling her own read on why the shift from human browsing to machine-mediated discovery represents a genuine structural change rather than an incremental trend — one that rewards companies and executives who move early to build the underlying infrastructure and partnerships.

For Glu, the hire signals an intent to move beyond product development into serious commercial scaling in India — a market the company sees as central to its global ambitions given the country's size, digital adoption curve and increasingly AI-native consumer base. For Katyal, the move represents a bet that the next major platform shift in digital commerce will be defined not by search rankings or social feeds, but by how effectively brands can position themselves within the answers AI systems generate on a consumer's behalf, and that being early to build that expertise carries the same career leverage that early social and programmatic advertising expertise once did.