Hamsini Shivakumar is a co-founder of Leapfrog Strategy Consulting, one of India’s premier brand consulting companies as well as of Semiofest, the global un-conference for applied semiotics.  Prior to starting Leapfrog in 2008, she was Strategy Head at JWT Mumbai, member of the National Planning Council at JWT India and Regional Planning Director for Asia on Unilever.  Her twenty-five+ year career spans consumer insights, brand strategy, communication planning and innovation.  She has worked on a diverse range of product categories, brands, consumer groups and virtually every kind of strategic issue or challenge that brands face.  She is a trained Semiotician and a regular writer on consumer and brand issues in International and Indian publications.

Hamsini writes:

“I stumbled into Semiotics in 2009 and found it fascinating.  I love the interpretive scope of textual analysis and the big picture perspective that Semiotic analysis reveals.  I also enjoy the process that it calls for: the “join-the-dots” synthesis and interpretive insights drawing from various disciplines of social theory.  Having worked in the communications sector for many years and the consumer insights sector before, I also enjoy the collaboration with consumer qualitative research and ethnography as well as the forward linkages from semiotic analysis into campaign development as well as design.  I jumped into starting Semiofest as an experiment, but it has turned out to be a life-enhancing experience, to take it to different countries and to be a member of a global, cosmopolitan community of professionals of integrity and commitment.”