Strategy With a Soul: Niyanta Mirjankar on Building Success With Vision, Instinct, and a Little Delusion.

CULTURE & INDUSTRY INSIGHT

Image credits: courtesy of Niyanta Mirjankar.

Drea by Shambhavi

For Niyanta Mirjankar, a Senior Strategy Director who has worked at agencies like DDB,

TBWA Singapore and MullenLowe Lintas, the most powerful tool in strategy isn't always

data, it's a healthy dose of delusion.

Data Feels. Intuition Thinks.

The Best Work Does Both. In an industry increasingly seduced by dashboards and algorithms, Mirjankar holds her ground with quiet conviction.

"Data is the foundation that validates and drives scale, but intuition is what makes work feel human and the best work happens when the two are in conversation,

" she says."Sometimes I feel something instinctively and turn to data to ground it. Other times the data reveals a pattern, and intuition helps me interpret what it really means. I don't treat them as opposites."But there are moments when they refuse to agree. While working on a haircare brand, data pointed the team in a direction that felt culturally off sound on paper, but tone-deaf to the Indian consumer. "My instincts screamed otherwise. After countless discussions, the campaign was eventually adapted to better reflect the audience it was meant for." The lesson? Overriding logic is sometimes necessary but always intentional. "At the end of the day we carry something no machine ever will: a gut instinct shaped by our lived experiences."

The Power of Believing Before You Have Proof

Recognition, when it arrives, is worth savouring. Mirjankar was recently felicitated by her alma mater and she's refreshingly unapologetic about loving every moment of it. "It was surreal and yes, I loved being on that stage." But she is equally clear-eyed about what accolades cannot be allowed to become: a ceiling. "A few years ago, I decided to be wildly delusional about what I could achieve. I applied for roles I wasn't 'ready for, I pitched ideas in rooms where I was the youngest, I believed I could win way before I had proof. The last time I let my delusion run wild, it got me a job in Singapore." In a world that rewards caution and calls it wisdom, she offers a different operating system entirely."The world is wired to make you more realistic and aware of your limits. And it is in these moments that the delusional voice in your head has to scream louder than any applause and shine brighter than any award so you never let external validation dictate how far you can go."

The Biggest Myth in Global Strategy

Having worked in the APAC, India and US markets, Niyanta strongly pushes back against the tendency to paint consumers with a broad brush."Anyone who says 'APAC consumers are' has already lost me because that single region alone has such different value systems, aspirations, cultural codes and lifestyle cues." And yet, beneath all that complexity, one truth travels. "People want to be heard and feel seen. Consumers don't wake up thinking about brands. They wake up thinking about their own lives, their ambitions, pressures, insecurities, identities. When a brand reflects this reality back to them, it makes them feel understood. That's where the real connection begins." The solution, she insists, is never copy-paste."Real impact comes from anchoring a powerful idea in a human truth strong enough to travel and then having the rigor to ensure each market communicates it in its own voice."

Feeling Deeply Is Not a Weakness. It's the Work.

Early in her career, she was quietly conditioned to believe that professional success required stoicism that emotions were best left at the office door. She tried it. It didn't last. "I began to question that narrative when I noticed something important: the work I was most proud of came directly from what I felt." A campaign she created for Women's Day recently took home an award and she is certain it wouldn't have landed the same way had she not personally lived the tensions it was built around. "The woman who feels deeply and the woman who succeeds professionally are not in conflict. Emotional safety isn't about building walls. It's about allowing yourself to feel without apology, and believing that those emotions can strengthen your thinking rather than weaken it."

The Equation That Outlasts Every Campaign

On the age-old tension between clients and agencies, Mirjankar cuts through the noise with characteristic directness."It's rarely about proving someone wrong. It's about the equation you share with them."She has built her reputation not on being the smartest person in the room, but on being the most consistent."What stays with a client long after campaigns and contracts isn't the agency name it's the person who kept showing up for their business. If you consistently demonstrate that you understand their brand, they're far more open to reframing the problem with you." In every answer, the same thread runs quietly through a woman who has chosen to feel, to trust, to leap, and to rest, all on her own terms. Strategy with a soul. Success with a little delusion. And a life, unapologetically, that is entirely her own.

On Taking a Year Off at the Peak of Everything

Two years ago, at what might have looked from the outside like exactly the wrong moment, Niyanta stepped away for a year."It terrified me. I didn't know if I would return to the same place I had left, or if I was interrupting the momentum I had worked hard to build. But I also knew I didn't want to wake up years later and realise I had built a career\without building a life."

She went to Vegas for New Year's, scuba-dived to a World War II shipwreck, solo-travelled to Bali, helped raise her niece, read 56 books, and completed a psychology course at Yale. Nothing fell apart."If anything, I came back more confident, with a deeper and wider perspective on life.

I no longer postpone joy in the name of ambition and in fact strongly believe that a large part of my success exists because of the life I choose to live.

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