Nivesh Jain is a CMO and startup leader with over 15 years of experience building and scaling consumer businesses. His work sits at the intersection of brand and performance, translating business ambition into data-driven growth systems that drive revenue, retention, and long-term value. Earlier, Nivesh led digital mandates for brands like NSE, Reliance Energy, Lodha, Mumbai Metro, WWE India, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Yes Bank, and IPL, delivering award-winning campaigns. Beyond his core role, he is an advisor, mentor, speaker, and angel investor. His D2C growth playbook is anchored in contribution margin discipline, strong ownership-led team cultures, and a relentless focus on experimentation.
Can you take us back to the beginning of your journey and share the story behind how you reached your current role at Handelnine Global?
My marketing career started with blogging and social media while I was still studying engineering. These part-time jobs and internships led to my first digital marketing job, back when the field was still nascent in India. After a few years in ecommerce and agencies, I realised that I wanted to join a startup as a founding team member and commit to growing one business. That brought me to Handelnine Global in 2018 and I’ve been building this business ever since.
Every successful journey has its share of challenges. Could you share a specific obstacle you faced in your career, how you navigated it, and what it taught you?
I was heading marketing for a startup about 10 years ago, where we burnt our funding recklessly and had to lay-off 80% of the team. I then took a pay-cut and started re-building it with a business model overhaul, prioritising profit over growth. The lesson I learnt was that scaling without profitability can be very dangerous and growth should always be sustainable.
How do you approach profitability in D2C? Isn’t this one of those industries where you need to burn cash to be able to grow and scale? Does profit prioritisation come at the cost of scale?
I do not believe that D2C growth requires aggressively burning investor capital. Handelnine Global is bootstrapped and we are projecting this year’s revenue to comfortably cross 300 crores, with a double digit PAT. So, to me, it doesn’t look like you have to pick either profitability or scale. My playbook for profitable growth in D2C is to have contribution margin discipline from day zero, break big ticket investments into low-cost experiments and focus on CX to create growth loops for efficient marketing costs.
What are some of the unique marketing challenges in your industry, and how have you developed strategies or frameworks to solve them in a way that sets you apart?
The biggest marketing challenge for D2C startups is capital-efficient customer acquisition. We’ve solved this at Handelnine Global with a two-pronged approach. One, optimise the CAC through experimentation and CRO, and two, increase the AOV and LTV that helps balance overall RoAS.
As a marketing leader, how do you approach innovation and stay ahead of evolving trends such as AI, automation, and changing consumer behavior? What key shifts do you believe will define digital marketing in 2026?
Things are evolving fast and I try to keep pace by talking to as many founders and marketers as I can. Setting aside dedicated reading time also helps. For me, the biggest shift this year will be search fragmentation, as people turn to LLMs for product discovery instead of relying only on Google. I recommend all brands to start focusing on first party data and to structure content for AI discovery.
Over the years, have you built thought leadership through speaking engagements, mentoring, or published content? How do these efforts shape your perspective and influence in the industry?
Thought leadership tends to follow naturally for anyone in a leadership role. I have been engaging with the startup ecosystem as a mentor and angel investor, while also participating in industry events as a speaker and panelist. Being an investor helps me to discover and learn new things about various industries, understand challenges specific to a product category or business stage and shape my own approach to navigating similar bottlenecks.
What recognitions, partnerships, or collaborations have played a significant role in establishing your credibility and growth journey?
I am grateful that my work has been recognised through various industry awards. The Business World 40 under 40 is definitely worth mentioning. I’ve also received awards from CMO Asia, ET Now, World Marketing Congress, Trescon, Oracle, and World Federation of Marketing Professionals. These accolades do help with credibility, especially when someone reaches out for guidance.
To help our readers understand your scale and impact, could you share some key insights such as team size, growth milestones, client base, or any measurable business achievements? Additionally, how do you ensure ethical practices, data privacy, and customer trust in your marketing efforts?
It’s been a long career, but to share the impact in my current role, I’ve delivered 15x growth in 8 years, taking our annual D2C revenues from about $2m to over $30m, while improving overall profitability. About ensuring ethical practices, I make sure that we are compliant with privacy regulations, like GDPR for our European sites. I also consciously stay away from intrusive tactics to drive D2C conversions and focus on good products, good CX and smart marketing to drive growth.
How would you describe the culture and core values you foster within your team at Handelnine Global? How do you encourage creativity, accountability, and continuous improvement?
I am very proud of the culture at Handelnine Global. I’m fortunate to work with some really sharp minds in my team. We balance individual KPIs with team OKRs to eliminate competition and foster collaboration, which has worked very well. We also monitor KPIs through real-time dashboards to stay accountable. I’ve also realised that the best way to nurture creativity is to allow freedom and time to think, set reasonable timelines and keep feedback constructive.
Quick Takes
1. One metric every D2C brand should obsess over but most ignore:
First order profitability.
2. Biggest shift in digital marketing from when you started your career to today:
Marketers went from chasing hacks to earning trust. Algorithms change but fundamentals don’t.
3. One quote that motivates you the most:
If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution – Steve Jobs
4. One piece of advice you would offer to upcoming entrepreneurs or future business leaders:
Build a business before building a brand.
5. One movie or book you recommend everyone in business or leadership should experience:
Die With Zero by Bill Perkins
