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Category: People

  • Praveen Kenneth retires from L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi

    Praveen Kenneth retires from L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi

    MUMBAI: Law & Kenneth founder and chairman Praveen Kenneth announced his retirement from active engagement on the sidelines of the final sale of his shareholding, in Paris.

    Law & Kenneth was the largest independent communication companies in India before becoming a part of Publicis Groupe in January 2014, to create L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi.

    Over the next six months during the transition, Kenneth will be involved in mentoring and guiding the teams.

    Anil Nair, the CEO and MD, who has been groomed over the past 24 months, and running the operations will now be leading the company.

    Publicis chairman of the supervisory board Maurice Levy said: “Praveen has been with us slightly after opening Publicis in India (1999) and had led the agency to growth and creative excellence. He then decided to launch Law & Kenneth ( 2002), which also has been a great success.”

    Kenneth stated: “The incredible success story of Law & Kenneth and L&K| Saatchi & Saatchi has been nothing less than a magical testimony of “making the impossible, possible.”

    “Building from zero, to four offices, 400-plus amazing people and being in the top 10. Winning at Cannes, D&AD, epic pitch wins and first class clients. It’s been a dream run,” he added.

    L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi has an enviable list of blue chip clients, which includes Renault India, HeroMotoCorp, Kent RO, P&G, Dabur, Pepper Fry, Jockey, Mondelez, Godrej Interio and Exide Insurance. It won two silvers at Cannes in 2016, and won again in 2017, and this time a Gold.

  • GTB India’s Dasgupta appointed as Iris Delhi creative director

    GTB India’s Dasgupta appointed as Iris Delhi creative director

    MUMBAI: Creative agency Iris has appointed Chaitali Dasgupta as the creative director, as part of the agency’s plans to grow in India.

    With more than 15 years industry experience working on brands such as Ford, Nokia, Microsoft, NIIT and more, Dasgupta’s most recent position was the creative director for GTB India, Ford’s global agency.

    Dasgupta started her career as a journalist for ‘Virtual Mahazine’ before moving on to pursue her passion in advertising and worked with a number of renowned mainline and digital agencies. Her work encompassed several national and international award-winning campaigns including The One Show, Webbys, Goa Fest and Kyoorius.

    Iris chief creative officer Shaun Mcilrath said: “For us, she represents an exciting and dynamic talent in an equally exciting and dynamic market.”

    At Iris Delhi, Dasgupta will be responsible for leading and growing the agency’s creative output for clients in the region, working with clients including Shell and Beam Suntory.

  • Madhouse COO Pathak hired as Httpool MD – southeast Asia

    Madhouse COO Pathak hired as Httpool MD – southeast Asia

    MUMBAI: Httpool has announced the appointment of Milind Pathak as the managing director for Southeast Asia to be based in Jakarta.

    In this role, Milind will be responsible for laying the foundation and setting up of Httpool in the region and building up strategic relationships with key clients and partners. Httpool has global client / partner alliances, and intends to provide the Southeast Asia market access to these partners.

    Milind is an experienced international executive, with strong knowledge of the southeast Asia region and a well-recognised thought leadership in mobile and digital industry. He has been an active evangelist in the Asian market for mobile entertainment/ marketing / commerce / internet domain for over two decades.

    In his previous role, Milind was the COO of Madhouse, South Asia, A WPP- GroupM’s mobile marketing specialist unit, where he was responsible for providing award-winning mobile media and creative solutions across the GroupM client portfolio and help them manoeuver a mobile first journey in the digital world.

    Milind has played multiple level leadership roles in his previous avatars at One97 (Paytm) – Comviva (later acquired by Tech-Mahindra) / Mitsui / Buongiorno in multiple markets of Asia / Africa and Middle East

    Httpool APAC co-founder and MD Sunny Nagpal said: “Milind is an exceptional choice to lead the Southeast Asia business as he has a track record of leading businesses at a global level and deliver sustained growth and profitability. His in-depth experience in this sector will lay a strong foundation for the SEA business.”

    Pathak says: “Mobile-first has always been my approach, and I will be working with our diverse network teams and support our global partners to maximise full potential of the growing Southeast Asian market in this mobile domain.”

    He will be leading business initiatives and set up of the Southeast Asia operations of Httpool group. Httpool is in process of starting its operations in Indonesia and Malaysia and looking at aggressively penetrating the region.

  • Dentsu’s iProspect bolsters leadership with role elevations

    Dentsu’s iProspect bolsters leadership with role elevations

    MUMBAI: iProspect India, the digital agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has strengthened its leadership band through different role advancements. The digital landscape is evolving, a dynamic industry coupled with seasoned client demands are re-defining the way it works. In keeping with this change, iProspect India has made key meritorious promotions.

    Ankita Pande, previously AVP – Operations, is now Head of Strategy at a pan India level, based in Delhi. She comes with a keen strategic bent of mind and great potential to add value to the business. She will also work on growing the branding business amongst other basket of objectives.

    Based in Mumbai, Venkat Gavaskar Dontha has been assigned the responsibility of Branch Head – West. He was AVP – SEO prior to this. The new role involves heading the Mumbai region and surrounding cities with respect to client servicing, business development and operations.

    Ankita and Venkat will both report into iProspect India CEO Rubeena Singh.

    Shipra Tandon, Strategist – Content Marketing, will head the agency’s new content marketing division Intelligent Content at a national level. This business line will primarily facilitate the use of content in digital performance, providing an end-to-end solution on content strategy, creation, promotion and impact. She will report into Srikar Nagubandi, Senior Vice President – Operations and is based in Mumbai. Shipra was earlier Strategist – SEO.

    Rubeena Singh, CEO, iProspect India said, “Various factors such as changing industry dynamics, enhancing the client experience, ensuring best interests of the business and doing justice to the skillsets of some of our leaders, demand that we always have a passionate and result-oriented leadership team at the helm.”

    She added: “The strategy and content marketing pieces take top priority at iProspect India as we move forward and are crucial elements of our growth, which will feed into business development and client servicing.”

  • iCubesWire hires Hungama’s Veerappa as group head – south

    iCubesWire hires Hungama’s Veerappa as group head – south

    MUMBAI: iCubesWire, a digital marketing solutions provider, has announced the appointment of Shashank B. Veerappa as the group head of the south region. He will head iCubesWire’s Bengaluru office while expanding and strengthening its business.

    Shashank brings 13+ years of experience to iCubesWire, having worked in areas such as digital online sales and marketing, product design and management, client and partner management, operations responsibility and has defined multiple roles with broad range of analytic and creative skills in marketing, lead management, sales and operations.

    Prior to joining iCubesWire, he was associated with Hungama Digital Services as south India head. He has also worked with Times Internet and Tyroo Media.

    iCubesWire founder and CEO Sahil Chopra says, “I am certain that Shashank will expand our business prospects in the southern region.”

    Veerappa says, “It’s going to be a great start at the Bengaluru office where I look forward to leveraging my skills.”

  • Dentsu elevates Kartik Iyer as president – Media Brands and Amplifi

    Dentsu elevates Kartik Iyer as president – Media Brands and Amplifi

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Aegis Network has strengthened its media group across Carat and Vizeum to provide a future-proofed, digitally ahead, holistic solution to clients. Kartik Iyer has been elevated to president, Media Brands and Amplifi.

    Dentsu Aegis Network chairman and CEO South Asia Ashish Bhasin said, “To enable a more future ready product for our clients, our media agencies have been reorganized for the rapidly changing market environment under the unified leadership of Kartik Iyer who has been leading our fastest growing media agency, Carat, for over eight years now. He will be responsible for enabling the continued fast track growth of the brands and will provide senior executive council level oversight to the media brands, in addition to his Amplifi responsibilities.”

    Speaking on the next steps for Media Brands, Kartik Iyer, President -Media Brands and Amplifi said, “I am delighted to have been given this opportunity and look forward to working with the agencies in their growth path over the years. Carat is future proofing to take on the new opportunities that the market dynamics have provided in order to be able to provide world class service to our clients. Rajni Menon as CEO of Carat and Joydeep Raha as CEO of Carat Context will be leading their respective agencies.”

    “Rajni is a true blue One DAN exponent. In the past 8 years that Rajni has been with Carat, she has led some of the agency’s most significant developments in capabilities, especially in the area of ICP, CCS, CCS Planner, Multiscreen planning (TV Stack) and Digitizing of Carat, which has enabled the entire group to deliver more consumer focused and business oriented solutions and is best placed to drive it to the next level. Joydeep has been a pillar in the growth path that Carat has seen over the years, particularly in the South markets. With his focus on business growth backed by delivering integrated solutions, he has constantly been adding business for the group. Further, Himanka Das will be taking over as CEO of Vizeum. Himanka has been a part of Dentsu Aegis Network Media leadership for the last 5 years and has a proven ability in managing and growing client relationships both Multinational and Indian,” Iyer added.

    Shripad Kulkarni has decided to pursue interests outside of the company after the end of this year.

    Speaking on Shripad, Bhasin said, “Shripad has contributed significantly to the growth of Vizeum in India. His focus on business and managing client relationships has enabled Vizeum to grow from strength to strength in the last 2 years. We wish him all the very best in his future endeavours.”

    Speaking on the future plans, Iyer said, “The Leadership of our Media group will continue to focus on delivering Business Outcomes and Digitally Ahead solutions. Over the next few weeks, each of the agencies will be setting up their plans for the coming years and you can expect some very significant initiatives in this area by each agency. Rajni, Joydeep and Himanka, as leaders of their respective media agencies, will continue to innovate the way brands are built.”

  • Havas hires Contract’s Chakraborty to lead creative partner Benckiser team

    Havas hires Contract’s Chakraborty to lead creative partner Benckiser team

    MUMBAI: Sanghamitra ‘Shong’ Chakraborty has joined Havas Media’s Gurgaon operations as the senior vice president and business head. She will lead the integrated Reckitt Benckiser (RB) team at Havas India, which is the creative partner for many of RB India’s brands.

    It is also a hub of creative work on three major RB brands – Harpic, Mortein and Veet – for the world other than for Europe and North America.

    Chakraborty joins Havas from Contract Advertising. In over 18 years in advertising and brand management, she has worked on several major global and home-grown brands such as GSK, Tata Docomo, Nestle, Maruti Suzuki, Motorola, Dabur, National Geographic etc. across stints with Grey Worldwide, TBWA, Publicis and Contract.

    Havas India CEO Nirmalya Sen said – “Anyone who has worked with Shong – clients and colleagues alike – will agree that she isn’t just a ‘make-it-happen’ person. She is a ‘make-everyone-happen’ person. Her energy is infectious, as is her ability to pull off the impossible.”

    Chakraborty said: “It is a new experience to work in an environment where the offline and online worlds, as well as the creative and media worlds, have been woven seamlessly into one Village, held together with the brand’s philosophy of ‘Better Together’. My other reason, really, was fairly selfish, Havas and RB gave me the opportunity to be an origin market for some of the biggest brands in the FMCG space, and that to me is challenging and should be rewarding at the same time.”

  • Times’ Vineet Sodhani joins Spatial Access as CEO

    Times’ Vineet Sodhani joins Spatial Access as CEO

    MUMBAI: Spatial Access, a media audit company, has a new leader at the helm; Vineet Sodhani has taken over as the CEO.

    Spatial Access co-founder and chairperson Meenakshi Menon is excited about the transformation that is under way. She says: “As media moves into a new era of complexity, Spatial Access, under the new leadership, will simplify it for its clients with custom solutions, many of which will be first time in the industry. With Vineet (Sodhani)’s strong background in research and strategy, we will provide valuable insights, a lot of it in the public domain, so that the industry gets more value.”

    Sodhani has two decades’ experience in media strategy, sales and marketing in India and the US. In the past, he has worked for Times Television Network, Starcom Mediavest Group, Hansa Research Group, AC Nielsen and ORG-MARG. In 2012, he co-authored Guide to Indian Markets and is presently working on his second book.

    Sodhani says: “Spatial Access has that rare combination of a great customer and knowledge base. This strength will be used to drive value for every rupee spent on advertising, be it ATL, BTL or digital. We will raise some critical questions, for example, transparency, ROI and wastage.”

  • Colors-Nick and KidZania to blend entertainment with reality

    Colors-Nick and KidZania to blend entertainment with reality

    MUMBAI: In its endeavor to enrich consumer experiences and provide integrated entertainment, Viacom18 media and entertainment network has partnered with KidZania (Delhi).

    As a part of the partnership, KidZania Delhi will have a Nickelodeon and Colors-themed TV studio. The partnership with KidZania, is another step forward in Viacom18’s strategy of building ecosystems outside of the traditional television landscape, creating synergies across brands and platforms.

    KidZania is an interactive indoor theme park that empowers, inspires and educates kids through real-life role-play activities. By blending reality with entertainment, this partnership aims to provide an authentic and powerful developmental platform where kids can discover, explore and learn about the real-world.

    Viacom18 COO Raj Nayak said, “At Viacom18, we believe that creating experiences through multiple touchpoints goes a long way in fostering an engaged relationship with consumers. This partnership with KidZania brings a perfect opportunity for us to collaborate with like-minded partners and creating a platform for children to experience different aspects of the media and entertainment industry.”

    The Colors Studio will allow kids to actively interact and understand the story that is going to unfold for Colors show properties, be it India’s Got Talent, Rising Star, Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa or India Banega Manch. They can choose to be in front of the camera or behind it; enact the role of a celebrity host or get ready to dance with the stars and step into the shoes of their favorite judges, show characters.

    Viacom18 head – kids entertainment cluster Nina Elavia Jaipuria said, “Nickelodeon has always endeavored to engage with kids by providing them unique and immersive experiences that are unparalleled. This partnership is another step towards inspiring kids with an inimitable curated platform that facilitates learning, development as well as play. The Nickelodeon studio will now allow kids to be a part of their favorite nicktoons life thus building an everlasting bond with them.”

    Kids love being a part of the daily lives of their favorite characters and the Nickelodeon studio will provide kids an engaging platform to interact and be a part of the adventures of their favorite toons like Motu Patlu, Dora, Shiva, etc. The studio will open with a dubbing studio where kids will be able to enjoy a true to life simulated dubbing experience, by giving voice to their favorite Motu Patlu, Shiva to name a few.

    Going forward, the studio will continue to curate many such experience like learning how to create animation, immersing themselves in an episode of their favorite toons etc, allowing kids to truly feel inspired and experience the mystical world of their favourite nicktoons.

    KidZania India CEO Sanjeev Kumar said, “We are delighted to partner with Viacom18 for Colors and Nickelodeon studios, which will bring an exclusive experience for kids and we look forward to expanding this partnership in the future.”

    As part of building an ecosystem, KidZania will also have Voot Kids, the leading kids content destination from Viacom18’s OTT service. The platform will bring alive high decibel engagement throughout the year with an objective to engage and celebrate with kids & their parents on special occasions like Diwali, Christmas, summer holidays, etc.

  • Priti Murthy joins OMD India as CEO

    Priti Murthy joins OMD India as CEO

    MUMBAI: Omnicom Media Group-owned agency, OMD India has bolstered its leadership strength with the appointment of Priti Murthy as of CEO.

    In her new role, Murthy will lead OMD across all business functions, with a focus on building and leading future-ready teams, managing client relationships, and securing new business and growth. Her appointment is effective October 2017 and she will report to Omnicom Media Group CEO – SEA and India Torie Henderson.

    Murthy will be joining OMD from GroupM media agency Maxus, where she currently holds the role of the chief strategy officer.

    In a career spanning over two decades (of which 13 has been with Maxus) in media planning, insights and strategy, Murthy’s forte lies in transforming businesses – by facilitating brand teams to work through key challenges and achieving business objectives – and reinvented thinking in terms of product conceptualisation and development.

    At Maxus, Murthy has led the development of a Behavioural Science Lab that merges the disciplines of behavioural science, sociology, and psychology to solve real-life business problems. She is also a certified coach that value adds to her leadership skills.

    “Priti’s appointment will ensure OMD’s accelerated growth that will not only take OMD to the next level, but also stay at the forefront of change,” said Henderson.

    OMD’s APAC CEO Stephen Li said, “A comprehensive and intense search for the right leader, led us to Priti, who is the perfect candidate to spearhead the next phase of development in a critical market like India. A goals-oriented, industry leader with a proven track record of success especially in the realm of data, digital and content, Priti will ensure we continue to deliver on the OMD promise of championing powerful, creatively-led, insight-driven work for our clients.”

    Omnicom media group India COO Harish Shriyan says: “Priti’s role is not only as a key contributor in shaping and strengthening the value-proposition of our already established team, but also in bringing proven expertise that enhances our overall network.’’

    Murthy says: “It’s a great role, with enormous possibilities. It’s going to be an exciting future and I am committed to driving OMD’s continued growth and ambition in India.”