Shalini is the founder and CEO of her boutique qualitative research The Key Consumer Diagnostics Pvt Ltd , unlocked in late 2004. The Key is a creative and energetic company made up of people with a natural affinity for contemporary culture, a real interest in what makes people tick and a fascination for brands and how people interact with them.

Shalini authored a weekly column ‘Pop Code’ for DNA from 2013-2014. This was a weekly observation of how we behave as a society in different contexts. She has written many a marketing lessons for various trade magazines and websites like The Pitch (pitchonnet.com), E4M and MXM. She was a guest faculty in EMDI and MET in 2010-11 teaching management students the intricacies of consumer behavior. She hosted a live consumer focus group – a first in India – at the Ad:tech in February 2013.

Prior to this, Shalini worked in the advertising and communication industry for over a decade in some of the best ad agencies like Lowe, Ambience and Contract. She was for a brief period also the programming head for the challenger TV channel – Hungama TV in the over crowded kids space. Under her stewardship, Contract won the silver Effies for Cadbury Temptations and Hungama TV became a major success story in just 22 months of its launch. Though Hungama TV was bought over by Disney in 2006, the core positioning of the channel ‘For the kids, by the kids and of the kids’ and the flagship program ‘Captain’s Hunt’ developed under Shalini’s creative vision and strategy still continue.

Shalini is a Post Graduate and a rank holder in Advertising & PR from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi (1993).

Shalini is on Twitter via the handle @sherryrawla