Aarti Sura

Aarti Sura is a Vice President at Three Ships Media and Managing Director of The Emerging Media Research Council, our think tank. Aarti works closely with Fortune 500 companies and associations – from AT&T to Eli Lilly to The US Chamber of Commerce – advising them on digital media best practices and trends, and in turn applying these learnings to each of our TSM client engagements.

Background

Previously Aarti worked in investment banking with McColl Partners, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Aarti’s work spanned over 30 transactions across the United States as well as internationally, while her clients represented companies across diverse industries, such as healthcare, defense, IT, and consumer products.

Aarti also worked in brand management at General Mills, honing her passion for digital media and its impact on organizations and brands today. In addition, she served as a Director at New Profit, a venture philanthropy firm, where she lead the company’s efforts to codify best practices for organizations expanding their operations globally and provided strategic advice to portfolio organizations.

Education

Aarti holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A Few Favorite Articles

“Beyond Paid Media: Marketing’s New Vocabulary.” The McKinsey Quarterly article by David Edelman and Brian Salsberg challenges the popular “paid, owned, earned” media model. Two new forms, “sold” and “hijacked” are added to recognize media your company can offer to other organizations and opportunities for dissenting consumers to take your company’s campaign hostage, respectively.

“Reverse Engineering Google’s Innovation Machine.” The Harvard Business Review article by Bala Iyer and Thomas H. Davenport goes beyond the search engine and IT infrastructure that at the core of Google’s product and explores the management practices that drive Google’s innovation. From practicing strategic patience to evaluating how your organizational design encourages ideation, the article offers actionable lessons for a wide range of companies seeking to foster innovation.