Brands
Shamik Basu joins Adobe as VP creative cloud in India
Former Microsoft leader to steer flagship creative products and teams
MUMBAI: Shamik Basu has joined Adobe as vice president, creative cloud, where he will lead the company’s flagship creative products from India.
In his new role, Basu will oversee teams working on some of Adobe’s most widely used tools, including Illustrator, Firefly, Photoshop, InDesign and Premiere Pro, placing him at the heart of the company’s global creative technology engine.
Basu arrives at Adobe after a long and influential stint at Microsoft, where he most recently served as VP, office product group. There, he drove improvements across core product fundamentals such as performance, reliability and user experience for widely used applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. He also played a key role in shaping an AI-first approach to product development, bringing new capabilities to users while rethinking how software is built at scale.
Earlier, as partner director of engineering for Microsoft 365, Basu led teams across India working on a suite of productivity tools and services used by billions globally. His leadership extended across products such as OneNote, Visio and Project, alongside cross-platform innovations spanning voice, video and cloud-connected applications.
His tenure also included leading product and engineering for Skype in India, where he helped scale Skype Lite, a lightweight app tailored for Indian users, driving it past 10 million installs. Prior to that, he held leadership roles across Visual Studio Online and MSN and Bing, where he worked on high-scale platforms serving hundreds of millions of users worldwide.
With a career spanning more than three decades in software development, product management and engineering leadership, Basu brings a rare blend of technical depth and product vision. His move to Adobe signals a continued focus on India as a key hub for building globally impactful creative tools.
As creative workflows increasingly blend design, AI and collaboration, Basu’s appointment suggests Adobe is sharpening its focus on the next wave of digital creativity, with India firmly in the frame.
Brands
Dunkin’ Donuts to exit India as Jubilant FoodWorks ends 15-year franchise deal
The quick service restaurant giant is ending a 15-year franchise partnership with the American doughnut chain, even as it renews its Domino’s agreement for another 15 years
NOIDA: Dunkin’ is done in India. Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the country’s leading quick service restaurant operator, has decided not to renew its franchise agreement with the American coffee and doughnut chain, and will wind down its Indian stores in a phased manner before December 31, 2026, bringing a 15-year partnership to a quiet, loss-laden close.
The decision, approved by JFL’s board on March 30, 2026, ends a relationship that began with a Multiple Unit Development Franchise Agreement signed on February 24, 2011. JFL will now evaluate and undertake what it described in a regulatory filing as the “rationalisation and/or cessation of certain operations and/or sale, transfer or disposal of assets and/or assignment or transfer of franchise rights,” all in consultation with Dunkin’s brand owners and strictly within the terms of the original agreement.
The numbers tell the story bluntly. In the financial year 2024-25, Dunkin’ India posted a revenue of Rs 37 crore against a loss of Rs 19 crore — a haemorrhage that was always going to test the patience of a parent company recording revenues of Rs 6,104 crore and a profit of Rs 194 crore in the same period. Doughnuts, it turns out, were never going to move the needle.
The contrast with JFL’s handling of its other marquee franchise could hardly be sharper. Even as it walks away from Dunkin’, the company has just doubled down on Domino’s, signing a fresh Master Franchise Agreement on March 31, 2026, granting it exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino’s Pizza stores in India for 15 years, with an option to renew for a further 10.
JFL, incorporated in 1995 and promoted by the Bharatia family, operates a network of more than 3,500 stores across six markets — India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Its portfolio includes Domino’s and Popeyes on the global side, and two home-grown brands: Hong’s Kitchen and COFFY, a café brand in Turkey.
For Dunkin’, India was always a stretch. The brand never quite cracked the cultural code in a market where filter coffee and chai command fierce loyalty and where the doughnut remains, at best, an occasional indulgence rather than a daily habit. Fifteen years, mounting losses and a parent with better things to spend its capital on was always going to be a difficult equation to solve.
The doughnut has had its last day. The pizza, however, is staying.
