Seven years shaping brand, content and campaigns that land.
I'm Rutu Shah — a communications and marketing leader with seven years of experience building brand, content, PR and digital acquisition programmes across social impact, education, IT and PR.
A practice at the intersection of brand, content and measurable outcomes.
My work moves between strategy and delivery — setting narrative direction, building the systems that support it, and producing the campaigns, content and earned media that put it to work. Films, reports, white papers, case studies, reels, blogs, brochures, scripts — whatever form the message needs.
Seven years across sectors has taught me that systems matter as much as stories. Brands need frameworks. Campaigns need plans. Content operations need workflows. I've led teams of five, managed extended agency ecosystems of seven more, and delivered outcomes ranging from a 20% lift in university intake to 500+ earned media placements to a 50% LinkedIn audience gain in four months.
Below is the shape of a typical engagement. Most projects blend several of these at once.
Communications strategy
Starting with an audit of your current communications and a study of your audiences, I develop a strategy that connects the work to the people who need to find it. Deliverables typically include stakeholder mapping, prioritised objectives, channel and format recommendations, key messages across audiences, and a practical implementation roadmap with KPIs.
Brand & narrative development
For organisations in growth or transition: positioning, messaging architecture, voice, and cross-platform brand systems. Includes workshops, stakeholder interviews, and frameworks the whole team can use. Past work spans a multi-state IT expansion, a university's admissions rebrand, and a water-resilience NGO's cross-platform identity.
Digital acquisition & performance
SEO, SEM (Google Ads), paid social, LinkedIn strategy, email, and analytics — designed around measurable outcomes. Past engagements include a 20% lift in lead conversion, a LinkedIn audience scaled from 10,000 to 1,00,000 followers through employee advocacy, and an 18% reduction in student acquisition cost for a design university.
PR, earned media & thought leadership
Media relations strategy, press outreach, briefing materials, event and conference positioning — including TEDx engagements and 500+ earned media placements in outlets including The Times of India, Mid-Day, Indian Express, The Hindu, and GoodHomes.
Content production & multimedia
White papers, impact reports, case studies, films, reels, scripts, blogs, brochures, web copy. AI-assisted workflows (ChatGPT, Midjourney, Perplexity, Notebook LM, Veed, Shorthand) alongside traditional editorial craft.
Substance first. Form follows.
Good communications begin with understanding the work itself. I spend time with the material — reading the research, talking to the people doing it, learning the shape of the field — before I write a word of strategy. The audiences, formats, and channels come out of that understanding, not the other way around.
I trained in electronics and communication engineering, journalism (Xavier Institute of Communications), and liberal studies (Young India Fellowship, Ashoka University) — three ways of learning to ask good questions and structure answers. That range shows up in the work: strategy that's precise but not dry, writing that's plain but not flat, systems that teams can actually use.
I have worked with and known Rutu for the last six years. We worked together on several projects, with the creation of the website www.anu.edu.in being the largest and most significant. I have found Rutu to be precise in her articulation without losing the context. I have seen that she does not hesitate when she differs from authority in stating her point. She also has an artistic side to her which is more than significant and lends a stamp on her work. It is a joy to work with her.
Seven years across sectors and scale.
A condensed CV of roles. The full list of engagements — including freelance and consulting work — lives on the Projects page.