Kulfi Collective has strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Aditya Mehendale as executive creative director. 

Alongside this, the agency has elevated  Jayson D’Mello as chief innovation officer, Abhimanyu Singh as chief strategy officer, and Abhinandan Jain  as chief financial officer. 

D’Mello will lead Kulfi’s investments into AI and agentic workflows, building systems across the company’s intelligence, strategy and production offerings. Singh will focus on building client-facing products across cultural intelligence, creative systems, analytics and distribution, and Jain will lead the company’s financial strategy as Kulfi expands its creative capabilities, platform infrastructure and global ambitions.

Mehendale will lead Kulfi’s creative direction as the company enters this new phase. He moves from Schbang after a stint of eight years. 

Advait Gupt, co-founder and CEO, Kulfi Collective, said, “We’ve spent the last few years asking ourselves what a modern creative company should actually look like. For us, the answer was clear: it has to be faster, more intelligent, more collaborative, and much closer to culture itself. These leadership changes are about building the team that can help us do that at scale.”

Akshat Gupt, chief creative officer and co-founder, Kulfi Collective, added, “Aditya joins us at a deeply important moment in Kulfi’s journey. As we rethink how creativity is built, scaled and experienced in an AI-native world, we needed a leader who understands both creative ambition and organisational transformation. He has built and led large creative teams, driven exceptional work across categories, and understands how to put systems in place without losing the soul of the craft. That balance is incredibly important to us as we build the future of Kulfi.”

Mehendale said: “What really stood out to me about Kulfi was that it doesn’t define itself by the medium. In 2026, the lines between mainline, digital, entertainment and tech are all blurring anyway. Kulfi’s focus is simply on creating work that genuinely leaves a mark on culture. That changes the way you think creatively; you stop thinking in deliverables and start thinking about impact and influence. To me, what makes Kulfi exciting is its ambition to create work that isn’t just served to people, but that they actually want to seek out, participate in, and remember.”