Rizwan Shaikh has joined Dubai-based Climaty AI as Head of Strategy and Growth, Performance Media, taking on a role focused on combining artificial intelligence, data and performance media to support the company's growth strategy.
Shaikh announced the appointment on LinkedIn, marking a move after a two-decade career across the advertising and media industry in India. His experience includes roles across WPP, Publicis and Dentsu, with a focus on performance media, digital strategy and marketing.
In his new Dubai-based role, Shaikh is expected to bring his performance media experience to Climaty AI as the company builds its presence across the marketing technology ecosystem. Climaty AI also confirmed the appointment, saying his perspective would contribute to how the company develops its offering and approaches growth.
Shaikh's appointment follows a decade-long stint at WPP India. In a separate post announcing his departure, he said his time at the company included experience beginning with GroupM and progressing through different roles within the organisation.
Commenting on the appointment, Climaty AI founder and CEO Neel Pandya said Shaikh brings two decades of experience and a strategic background to the company. Pandya has previously held leadership roles across companies including L'Oréal, Vodafone and GroupM before founding Climaty AI.
Founded in 2025, Climaty AI positions itself as a marketing technology company combining agentic AI, performance advertising and carbon intelligence. Its platform is designed to help marketers measure the carbon impact of advertising campaigns while using AI-powered tools to manage and optimise campaign performance.
The company's technology includes a suite of specialised AI agents for different marketing functions. Its Campaign Builder AI is designed to support campaign planning and activation, while Analytics AI focuses on cross-platform insights and performance analysis. Creator AI assists with generating and adapting advertising creatives, and Optimizer AI is designed to manage elements including bids, budgets and targeting.
Climaty AI also operates a Programmatic+ offering that combines media buying with real-time decision-making and carbon-aware delivery. The company says its platform can work with advertising environments including Google Ads, Meta, DV360 and LinkedIn.
The appointment comes as AI is increasingly being integrated into performance marketing workflows, including campaign creation, analytics, media buying and optimisation. Marketing technology companies are developing agent-based systems intended to reduce manual processes and provide continuous monitoring of campaign performance.
For Shaikh, the move shifts his career from established agency networks to an AI-focused marketing technology company. His mandate brings together performance media strategy and growth as Climaty AI continues developing its agentic AI and programmatic advertising capabilities.
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