Co-Founder & CEO, Litmus

Ajay Row

G Ajay Row is an entrepreneurial business leader with 30 years of experience in data-driven marketing, loyalty, analytics and CRM across a variety of industries and a number of countries. He is currently the CEO of Litmus, a company he has co-founded and co-funded. Prior to Litmus, Ajay for four years, was Executive Director, India at the global leader in loyalty marketing, Aimia Inc. He moved to Aimia from his previous employer, Taj Hotels Palaces & Resorts, who he worked with for eight years as their VP of CRM, outsourced (at his urging) the 450 FTEs of the CRM function to a combination of Aimia and Tata Consultancy Services. His responsibilities at the Taj included data-driven marketing, loyalty (including the global award-winning Taj InnerCircle program), contact centers, data and much else besides. The Taj was Aimia’s first client in India and continues to win awards globally.
Ajay began his career at ITC Ltd., where he launched and managed India’s first direct marketing cell in 1986 followed by India’s first loyalty program, WelcomAward. He left ITC after 5 years to found and fund a direct marketing company which soon went broke. Ajay then built Trikaya Grey Direct, spent a couple of years in brand advertising and then founded and ran the global CRM major, Wunderman’s Indian operations. He went on to co-found several CRM-related companies including CustomerAsset (acquired by ICICI, now listed as FirstSource), marketics, X-plorite (in partnership with Citibank) and UCP Direct amongst others.
Educated in India, England and France, Ajay graduated in Economics and Statistics from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay and then did a PGDBM in Marketing and Systems from IIM Calcutta. Ajay is an awardwinning copy-writer, repeated judge and presenter at various international conferences, a lecturer at the IIMs and professional development seminars on topics related to CRM, loyalty, analytics and database marketing, a keen weekend sailor and an enthusiastic classical guitarist.