What does it take to make a festive shopping event come alive? One person decides which deals get the spotlight, another helps determine which offers make the cut, a third predicts how much stock sellers will need months in advance, and a fourth helps bring sought-after global brands to India. Meet four Amazonians whose work goes well beyond what customers see on their screens during the Amazon Great Indian Festival (AGIF).
Pooja Kiran Barla, Product Marketing Manager: The Two-Second Storefront Architect
A customer might spend just two seconds scrolling through Amazon’s homepage. But deciding what they see in those two seconds is a job in itself.
As Product Marketing Manager, Pooja works with dozens of category and programme teams to decide which deals, brands and shopping categories get prime position on the homepage, and when. She also helps shape the messaging and content that bring those placements to life. During AGIF, this becomes a continuous exercise in reading performance, interpreting data and deciding what deserves the spotlight next. Think of it as arranging a giant digital shop window that keeps evolving throughout the event.
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One superpower she wishes she had: the ability to say “no” so charmingly that people always thank her for it. That said, her family’s lengthy Amazon Great Indian Festival wishlists remain unfulfilled, she doesn’t get to decide product prices.
Anjali Pant, Deals Lead: The Deal Detective Who Looks Beyond the Discount
A big discount may catch a customer’s eye, but how do you know the deal is worth it? As Deals Lead, Anjali Pant works with the IN Deals team to help ensure that the offers customers see during AGIF deliver genuine value. Her team ensures two foundational things during AGIF: the quality of every deal customers see, and the platform sellers use to launch them. For customers, they set the bar for what goes live: price, value, and relevance. For sellers, they keep the platform used by thousands of sellers, and internal teams to submit and manage deals, rock-steady at peak AGIF traffic. Their work sits at the critical intersection of maintaining a high bar on Customer Trust while ensuring a smooth Seller Experience. Invisible when done right. Indispensable, always.
As Anjali puts it: “People think AGIF is about discounts. We know it’s really about customer trust. Every deal that goes live is a promise, that the discount is real, the product is available, and the value is genuine. Our job is to make sure that promise holds. At scale. Under pressure.”
Vedanti Deshmukh, Program Manager, Marketplace Business: The Person Predicting Your Next Bestseller
Amazon Great Indian Festival may feel like a flurry of deals once it begins, but Vedanti Deshmukh’s work starts almost four months earlier, with a question: how much stock will sellers need when customers start shopping?
As Program Manager, Marketplace Business, Vedanti identifies priority products, builds inventory forecasts and translates them into recommendations that help sellers plan ahead. As the event approaches, she tracks inventory moving into fulfilment centres and works with teams to ensure products are positioned where they are needed.
Her role also involves planning for demand that may exceed expectations. By helping arrange additional fulfilment capacity and positioning inventory in advance, her team prepares for the possibility that a product suddenly becomes a bestseller.
In other words, she’s working to anticipate what customers might want before the shopping rush begins. Her preferred superpower would make that job easier still: unlimited fulfilment-centre space.
After months of forecasts, inventory plans and seller conversations, her team ritual is considerably more straightforward, late-night pizza and Saturday biryani.
Abhinay KV, Category Head: The Global-Brand Scout Bringing International Names to India
Some products customers discover during AGIF have travelled a long way before they reach their shopping carts.
As Category Head, Abhinay works with global brands across markets such as China, Korea, the Middle East and the US, helping bring them to Indian customers through Amazon.in. Getting a global brand ready for AGIF can begin at least six months ahead of the event, with planning that spans inventory, pricing, international shipping, customs and fulfilment.
His team has helped bring brands such as WHOOP, Oura and Shark Ninja to Amazon.in, alongside emerging product categories such as digital paper tablets. What might look to a customer like a new product appearing online is, in reality, the result of months of planning and coordination between brands, distributors and Amazon teams.
During AGIF, Abhinay and his team often work together from a shared meeting room, coordinating with stakeholders across time zones to keep plans moving. His ideal superpower? Teleportation, so he could jump straight into a brand meeting in China, a stakeholder discussion in Bengaluru and the AGIF command centre without losing time to travel.
Behind the Scenes of Amazon Great Indian Festival
From deciding what earns a spot on the homepage to spotting the next big deal, predicting demand and bringing global brands to India, these four Amazonians have roles customers may never think about when they shop during AGIF. Their work starts months before the sale goes live, bringing together the people, products and plans that help turn a simple click into a seamless shopping experience.
