---
title: "Aadil Bandukwala - Vice President Content Studio in Bengaluru | Tal"
description: "Meet Aadil Bandukwala, VP Content Studio, HackerRank | Building AI-Powered Content Engines for HR Tech | Published Author (Bloomsbury) based in Bengaluru."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/aadil-bandukwala/share-image"
---

# Aadil Bandukwala on Tal

## Headline

VP Content Studio, HackerRank \| Building AI\-Powered Content Engines for HR Tech \| Published Author \(Bloomsbury\)

## About

I've spent 20 years at the intersection of talent, technology, and storytelling: helping companies figure out how to find, hire, and keep the people who build their future\. That journey has taken me from founding a recruiting firm, to shaping talent strategy consulting at LinkedIn, to creating the "Outbound Hiring" category at Belong\.co \(which became a book published by Bloomsbury, with a foreword by Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal\), to now building an AI\-native content studio at HackerRank that ships 5 reels a week and has grown our social footprint from 200K to 2M\+ followers with zero paid advertising spend\. Today, I lead HackerRank's Content Studio: a small, high\-output team that blends virtual production \(we built one of Bangalore's only VP\-screen studios\), AI workflows \(Claude Code, Runway ML, HeyGen, Unreal Engine 5\), and editorial craft to create content that moves markets\. We launched Hackanomics from zero to 100K\+ subscribers in under 8 months, produce thought leadership for Fortune 1000 CTOs and CHROs, and run strategic events across Bangalore, London, and New York\. What I've learned across these chapters: → The best GTM isn't louder marketing\. It's earning trust at scale: through community, insight, and consistency\. → AI doesn't replace craft\. It compresses the distance between idea and impact\. → The companies that win the talent war are the ones that invest in brand before they invest in job ads\. I also host two podcasts: The Great Indian Marketing Show and The Great Indian Points & Miles Show because I believe the best marketers are the ones who never stop being curious\. If any of this resonates, I'm always happy to chat: whether it's HR Tech, AI\-native content, GTM strategy, or how to fly premier cabins like the Etihad Apartments, Emirates First or Singapore Airways First Class Suites \- all on points\.

## Location

Bengaluru

## Work experience

Vice President Content Studio at HackerRank, Jul 2025 \- Present · 1 yr 2 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, I built and lead HackerRank's Content Studio: an in\-house creative engine that uses AI, virtual production, and editorial storytelling to drive brand authority and pipeline across global markets\. What we've built: ◆ A virtual production studio with a VP screen \(one of the first in India's B2B tech space\), professional cinematography capabilities, and real\-time 3D environments powered by Unreal Engine 5 and Resolume Arena 7\. ◆ An AI\-native content workflow using Claude Code \(with custom MCP servers for real\-time social analytics\), Runway ML, HeyGen, Higgsfield AI, and DaVinci Resolve Studio that lets a team of 4 produce at the velocity of teams 5x our size\. ◆ Hackanomics: a new media brand we launched from scratch\. Crossed 100K\+ combined subscribers on Instagram and YouTube within 8 months\. Zero ad spend\. Pure craft and consistency\. ◆ A global events programme including our Customer Advisory Board: intimate, high\-signal sessions with VP Engineering, CTOs, and CHROs from Fortune 1000 companies across Bangalore, London, and New York and the Innovator Awards \(in partnership with Economic Times\), which convenes 400\+ senior technology and HR leaders annually\. ◆ A Campus Ambassadors programme that bridges our B2B platform with the next generation of developers through university partnerships\. I report to the CEO and co\-founder\. My focus is on turning content from a cost center into a compounding growth asset: one that earns trust, builds community, and creates demand without buying it\.

Vice President Global Demand Generation & Customer Marketing at HackerRank, Dec 2023 \- Jun 2025 · 1 yr 7 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Led global demand generation and customer marketing across North America, EMEA, and APAC\. Partnering with sales, product marketing, and field teams to build integrated pipeline programs across enterprise, mid\-market, and self\-serve segments\. Key outcomes: → Delivered 4X to 6X pipeline targets for 6 consecutive quarters — a streak built on programmatic ABM, high\-value content, customer storytelling, and tight sales\-marketing alignment\. → Scaled HackerRank's social media footprint from 200K to 2M\+ followers on LinkedIn, with meaningful growth across YouTube \(240K\), Twitter \(95K\), and Instagram \(124K\) — all organic\. → Evolved customer marketing from a support function into a strategic growth lever: driving advocacy, case study production, expansion pipeline, and renewal support across the install base\. → Launched and scaled thought leadership formats: livestreams, podcasts, gated research that reinforced HackerRank's category position in developer hiring and AI skills assessment\. Reported to the Chief Revenue Officer\.

Senior Director of Marketing at HackerRank, Jun 2021 \- Nov 2023 · 2 yrs 6 mos, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India, Took ownership of HackerRank's B2B demand generation and customer marketing engine during a period of rapid global expansion\. Built the strategic and operational foundation that would later scale into a VP\-level function\. Pioneered new content formats: livestreams, podcasts, and high\-value gated assets to engage developer and buyer audiences\. Managed HackerRank's global social media presence across channels reaching 2M\+ followers, crafting distinct strategies for B2B and B2C audiences\. Drove field marketing, ABM, and event programmes to ensure GTM consistency across channels and geographies\.

Podcast Host at The Great Indian Marketing Show, Nov 2020 \- Nov 2024 · 4 yrs 1 mo, A long\-form interview series featuring the marketing leaders behind some of the world's most pioneering brands\. The show skipped the jargon and went straight to the how: how campaigns got built, how GTM strategies actually played out, and what marketers learned in the messy middle between ambition and execution\.

Chief Evangelist & Vice President Marketing at Belong\.co, Nov 2015 \- Feb 2020 · 4 yrs 4 mos, Bengaluru Area, India, Joined Belong\.co \(backed by Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners\) as one of the earliest go\-to\-market hires and grew from evangelist to VP Marketing over four years\. The defining work: creating the "Outbound Hiring" category from scratch\. This wasn't just positioning: it was a full category\-creation play involving thought leadership, field evangelism, content, PR, demand generation, and a book\. ◆ Authored "Outbound Hiring: How Innovative Companies Are Winning the Global War for Talent" published by Bloomsbury, with a foreword by Gopal Vittal \(CEO, Bharti Airtel\)\. Available in print and digital worldwide\. ◆ Built and scaled the full marketing function: product marketing, PR, digital, demand generation, customer marketing, and field enablement\. ◆ Developed and executed the company's public relations and thought leadership strategy, positioning Belong as the pioneer of AI\-driven lateral hiring in India\. This was the experience that taught me what it takes to build a category, not just run campaigns and it remains the lens through which I approach every GTM challenge\.

Senior Customer Success Consultant at LinkedIn, Mar 2013 \- Nov 2015 · 2 yrs 9 mos, Bengaluru Area, India, Partnered with the world's largest enterprises: Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, InMobi, Oracle, Mercedes Benz, Target, Honeywell to build their social recruiting strategies and employer brands on LinkedIn\. Consulted with CXOs and talent leadership teams on direct sourcing, employer branding in the digital age, and maximizing ROI from LinkedIn's hiring solutions\. Conducted quarterly workshops for leadership teams on "Talent at Scale" and building talent brand evangelism\. In 2015, focused on ramping LinkedIn's Enterprise accounts in India and boosting LinkedIn's own thought leadership presence in the market\. This role gave me an insider's understanding of how the world's largest professional network thinks about talent, brand, and distribution: knowledge I've applied to every role since\.

## Education

Post Graduate Diploma in Management, Business Management, Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development

PGDBEM, Business Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/aadil-bandukwala)

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