ITV

Category: People

  • Maxus recruits Vidur Patney and Pooja Verma with strategic roles

    Maxus recruits Vidur Patney and Pooja Verma with strategic roles

    MUMBAI:  Maxus, a global marketing communications consultancy firm under the GroupM umbrella, has announced two key appointments for its specialist units. Vidur Patney is roped in as the national director experiential marketing and Pooja Verma will be the head of Maxus ESP.

     

    In his career span of eighteen years, Patney has worked with leading agencies like Dentsu Communications Private Limited, Encompass Events Private Limited, and 212 Traders etc. He was with Globox Media Private Limited before being absorbed by Maxus. He has handled important and significant clients in all his earlier stints and brings to the table a proven ability to manage key account relationships and large-scale projects.

     

    Earlier with leading multi-nationals like Disney, BASF,etc. Pooja Verma has been involved in building engagement as a part of content strategy through communication, branding, marketing and citizenship initiatives, for nearly 15 years. In her last role she was the director of marketing and communication for Make-A-Wish based in Singapore.

     

    Talking about the two new appointments Maxus South Asia MD Kartik Sharma asserted, “The appointments of Vidur Patney and Pooja Verma reflect Maxus’ commitment to attracting the best and brightest talent to our agency. They both are reliable leaders with robust backgrounds in experiential marketing and content marketing respectively. Both of them will fit very well within our strongly established client-driven culture and marketing culture and we are sure they will achieve even higher success with Maxus.”

     

    Elaborating on this development, Vidur Patney said, “The media landscape is possibly at its most dynamic state today. It’s a time of rapid and big changes. With the vision that Maxus has, and the kind of work that they do, my decision making became that much easier. Maxus is going from strength to strength; I’m excited to be a part of this growth oriented organization and being present while we achieve greater heights of success.”

     

    “Maxus ESP is in a unique position to tell our client’s stories through differentiated content and associations with leading entertainment, sports and live properties. As MAXUS ESP gears up to the next level, I am privileged to lead this award winning team in its mission. I look forward to utilising all that I have learnt working with multinational brands in enabling the team to build an imaginative and successful body work for our clients”, adds Pooja Verma on her new appointment.

  • Rahul Nangia gets promoted as L&K Saatchi & Saatchi national creative director

    Rahul Nangia gets promoted as L&K Saatchi & Saatchi national creative director

    MUMBAI:  L&K Saatchi & Saatchi has elevated Rahul Nangia to the position of joint national creative director, alongside Charles Victor. The move is a clear indication of the emphasis the organisation wants to put in its creative leadership space in order to live up to its global iconic reputation. Nangia henceforth, will report to L&K Saatchi & Saatchi CEO and managing partner, Anil Nair.

     

    L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, co owner, chairman and managing director Praveen Kenneth said,  ““Our focus over the last decade has been to build a strong business foundation and strong client partnerships. We have a great reputation of being thought leaders and it is but natural for us to establish a strong creative reputation to maximize our to serve our clients.”

     

    Rahul has been credited with the creation of the iconic ‘Hum Mein Hain Hero‘ punchline during the launch of Hero MotoCorp that helped the brand catapult from being Hero Honda. His association with the organisation goes back by seven years and his contribution has been significant in some of its highly acclaimed work with accounts like Jockey, Thomas Cook, VIP Skybags and recently, pepperfry.com, to name a few.

     

    Charles Victor, with whom Nangia shares the designation, has been serving L&K Saatchi since 2006 and is placed as the National Creative Director.

  • Motivator appoints Maulshree Joshi as National Creative Director

    Motivator appoints Maulshree Joshi as National Creative Director

    Mumbai:  GroupM ‘s media agency, Motivator has appointed Maulshree Joshi as the national creative director. Maulshree will be reporting to Rabe Iyer, the Managing Director of Motivator. Henceforth, she will be working closely with the organisation’s business teams and senior client leads. 

     

    Joshi had been serving Group M since 2007 as the creative head (Content). She has scripted and conceptualized some award winning campaigns and shows in her career, which includes Group M’s first AFP show Mallika-e-Kitchen, the Boost Sachin Anthem which achieved the fastest ever million digital views of any branded content in India, Alpenliebe Magar Ke Nagar – India’s first virtual reality show on DD, radio campaigns by Pepsi, and many others.

    Speaking on the new development, Iyer said, “Maulshree comes in with a unique advantage of creative craft and a decade of experience, working with planners, traders, media owners, creative artists, directors, visualisers, digital communication planners, mobile specialists, CRM experts and expert data analytics personnel in the top agency network of India. Our endeavour is to consistently execute creatively, ideas for our brands on the back of our data centricity and globally backed grasp of the emerging digital world; Maulshree is best poised to contribute to it.”

    Maulshree Joshi also commented on her new role. “Today data and content are the two key pillars of any successful brand communication and I have been fortunate to work with clients who were the early-adopters to acknowledge the importance of content. I am now immensely delighted to be a part of Motivator and looking forward to contribute ‘content-fully’ towards its aggressive growth in the industry.” She said.

    Motivator has been one of the fastest growing agencies in India on the back of integrating multiple disciplines and practices. The agency’s current client base includes Havells, Honda Cars, Redington and Ingram, Himalaya Consumer Division, Ola Cabs, Essilor, Yamaha, LIC, Hungama.com, Bajaj Finserv, Kalyan Jewellers, Pepperfry.com and Hike Messenger.

  • Publicis’s Nakul Chopra is chairman of Goafest 2016 Organizing Committee

    Publicis’s Nakul Chopra is chairman of Goafest 2016 Organizing Committee

    MUMBAI The Advertising Club and Advertising Agencies Association of India have announced Goafest 2016 with Publicis South Asia, CEO Nakul Chopra as the chairman of Goafest Organizing Committee.

    Commenting on his appointment, Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAA’s of I) president Ambi M G Parameshwaran said “Nakul has been in this industry for over 30 years now. He has been leading Publicis in India through this last decade. I am very excited to see what plans he has in store for us this year.”

    The Advertising Club  president Raj Nayak too welcomed the appointment saying, “This is wonderful news. Nakul has been instrumental in driving Goafest to success in the recent past. With his proven track record in managing high performing agencies, he is truly the best man for the job! I look forward to work with him to make Goafest 2016 a roaring success.”

    To have been given the opportunity to Chair the Goafest Organizing Committee is an honor. There’s still a lot of work to do in strengthening Goafest and together, I hope we can build upon the good work of the past years,” added Chopra on his new role.

    The other members on the committee are:

    President, Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAA’s of I) & Advisor, FCB Ulka Advertising | Ambi M G Parameshwaran

    Founder, Chairman and MD at Madison World  | Sam Balsara

    Chief Executive Officer at Contract Advertising  | Rana Barua

    Chairman and CEO at Dentsu Aegis Network  | Ashish Bhasin

    Managing Director at Jaya Advertising  | Jaideep Gandhi

    CEO at Group M, South Asia  | CVL Srinivas

    CEO at LHAMPL  | Shashi Sinha

    CEO at JWT  | Tarun Rai

    Group CEO at Madison Media | Vikram Sakhuja

    Group CEO at Zee Media Corporation | Bhaskar Das

    Chief Corporate Sales and Marketing Officer at Dainik Bhaskar Group | Pradeep Dwivedi

  • Saurabh Varma gets promoted as Leo Burnett South Asia CEO

    Saurabh Varma gets promoted as Leo Burnett South Asia CEO

    MUMBAI: Leo Burnett Asia Pacific CEO and Chairman Jarek Ziebinski announced Saurabh Varma as CEO of South Asia operations for his agency. Varma currently heads Leo Burnett’s India operations as the CEO.

     

    The appointment, effective as of 17 November, will see Varma take responsibility of  Leo Burnett agencies across Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

     

    “South Asia is an important region for Leo Burnett from our global strategy perspective. With Saurabh’s appointment, we want to further enhance connectivity of our operations across these dynamic markets to drive business growth for our clients and the agency” said Ziebinski.

     

    Commenting on his new role, Varma added, “We have incredible operations across Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. I look forward to working with some talented leaders to build new age specialist functions across all markets and create larger futures for our clients.”

     

    Prior to his role current role as Leo Burnett India CEO, Varma was the Asia-Pacific Chief Strategy Officer, where he oversaw all heads of strategy and planning directors in the region.

  • Madison Media promotes Keswani as Sigma CEO and Banerjee as Infinity COO

    Madison Media promotes Keswani as Sigma CEO and Banerjee as Infinity COO

    MUMBAI: Madison Media has announced a few changes in its top management that start with the promotion of Madison Media Sigma COO Vanita Keswani to CEO of Madison Media Sigma. Further, current Pinnacle SVP Shekhar Bannerjee has been elevated to COO of Madison Media Infinity.

    Commenting on the new appointments, Madison Media & OOH, Group CEO, Vikram Sakhuja said, “This is a great recognition for Vanita and Shekhar. Vanita has brought solidity to a diverse portfolio and has driven consistent client value. Shekhar in his most recent avatar had driven Mondelez to a world class account. Both these promotions are truly deserved and I wish them the best in their new challenges.”

    Keswani has been with Madison Media for the last 18 years and donned various key roles and today heads a large portfolio of clients including Raymond, Piramal, McDonald’s, Shaadi.com, Pidilite, Indian Oil, Lodha, DHFL, Omkar, etc.

     

    Bannerjee joined Madison Media as a management trainee in 2004 and has risen to the top over the last 11 years. He will be responsible for Godrej, Asian Paints and Marico businesses of the Mumbai office.
     

    These promotions are part of Madison Next, an all-encompassing programme launched by Madison three months ago, that gets the agency future ready, focus on digital, empower youngsters, promoting internal talent to senior level management roles across units and focus on research, insights and big data.

  • Catvision reappoints SA Abbas as managing director

    Catvision reappoints SA Abbas as managing director

    MUMBAI: Catvision Ltd has re-appointed S A Abbas as the managing director of the company for an additional period of three years with the effect from 1 October, 2015.

     

    Abbas, who is also a director in the company, has been with Catvision since 8 June, 1985.  He has 30 years of experience including more than 25 years in the cable TV industry.

     

    Before joining Catvision, he worked with Network Ltd. in its marketing department, where he was closely associated with the sales and marketing of electronic typewriters and subscriber-use telecom equipment from 1980 -1985.

     

    He is professionally qualified technocrat and holds B.Tech from IIT Kanpur and MBA from IIM, Calcutta.

  • Wipro Global restructures media & telecom services wing

    Wipro Global restructures media & telecom services wing

    New Delhi, 8 November: Software major Wipro Global media and telecom Business head Ayan Mukerji has quit, leading to a shake-up.  No reasons were given for Mukherji’s departure as the head of the nearly $1 billion business. Mukherji played a major role in growing the various businesses across geographies during his 28 years of association with the outsourcing major.

     

    Wipro said the global media and telecom business will have a new structure with its sub-vertical communication services providers carved out into a separate strategic business unit (communications) with Vice President Anil Jain as its head. Jain will report to

    president and chief operating officer Abidali Neemuchwala.

     

    A  statement from the company said the media vertical has been merged into the retail, consumer goods, transportation and government (RCTG) business unit headed by Srini Palla to tap increasing synergies. The network equipment providers’ (NEP) vertical that works with customers such as Cisco has been merged into the manufacturing and hi-tech business headed by NS Bala to strengthen the company’s position in this space.

     

    Product engineering services business will also report to Neemuchwala who joined Wipro in March after leaving Tata Consultancy Services.

     

    In the second quarter of fiscal 2016, Wipro generated 13.4 percent revenue from Global Media & Telecom, 26.7 percent from Finance Solutions, 18.7 percent from Manufacturing & Hitech, 11.4 percent from Healthcare, Life Sciences & Services, 15.1 percent from Retail, Consumer Goods & Transportation and 14.7 percent from Energy, Natural Resources & Utilities. Its revenue rose 2.1 percent sequentially to $1,832 million in the second quarter ended 30 September.

     

    The Americas region contributed 53 percent revenue in Q2, Europe 25.2 percent, India & Middle East business 10.6 percent and APAC and Other Emerging Markets 11.2 percent.

  • GroupM names Brian Lesser as CEO, North America

    GroupM names Brian Lesser as CEO, North America

    MUMBAI: WPP’s GroupM has appointed Brian Lesser as CEO for business in the US and Canada.

     

    Lesser was previously Xaxis global CEO. He succeeds Kelly Clark, who will be transitioning to a new advisory role focused on strategic initiatives with clients and specialty businesses over the coming months.

     

    With this, Brian Gleason will succeed Lesser as Xaxis global CEO.

     

    In concert with these changes, GroupM global chief digital officer Rob Norman adds the position of chairman, North America to his responsibilities.

     

    The new roles for the two executives reflect GroupM’s certainty that the future of media-driven marketing is inextricably tied to data and technology. Key investments and partnerships over the past several years that support this positioning include WPP’s investments in comScore and AppNexus; GroupM’s and Kantar Media’s partnership with Rentrak; more recent alliances with BuzzFeed and Networked Insights; introduction of the industry’s first data management platform and first programmatic audience platform; introduction of Modi Media, the first fully-formed advanced TV specialty business delivering addressable TV ads at scale; and numerous progressive positions on digital ad viewability and measurement that are focused on raising the bar for effectiveness and trading currency.

     

    While driving advancement in North America, Lesser and Norman also each continue serving on GroupM’s global executive committee, led by GroupM global president Dominic Proctor and global chairman Irwin Gotlieb.

     

    “Brian will be a huge part of our future and his appointment reflects our values and ambition, as well as WPP’s drive to achieve 40-45% of revenues from digital in five years. Our future is being built on tech, data, talent and scale.  Brian absolutely gets that and is perfectly suited to help us shape that future to best serve advertisers.  We’re very fortunate to have him leading our business in the world’s biggest market,” said Proctor.

     

    “GroupM has continuously evolved with clients through major shifts in the media landscape and consumer behavior with data and technology having always been part of the value proposition. GroupM has challenged convention and forced dialogue on important issues to help clients be more successful. I’m humbled and grateful to have an opportunity to help continue this legacy at this time when complexity is more profound than ever,” added Lesser.

     

    “This is an exciting time for our company. We have many successes to count and new marketplace challenges to conquer, but above all, we have the strength of our agency brands, our specialist enterprises and our increasing differentiation in the management and application of data that leave us exceptionally well-positioned for the future. I’m energized by the road ahead and excited to work with Brian and our colleagues on the executive committee for the next chapter,” said Norman.

  • LinTeractive appoints Parag Shahane as unit creative director

    LinTeractive appoints Parag Shahane as unit creative director

    Mumbai: LinTeractive, the digital arm of the Mullen Lowe Lintas Group India, has announced the appointment of Shahane Shahane as unit creative director. Shahane has joined the team effective October 2015 and will report to Group CMO | group marketing services, president, Vikas Mehta.

     

    At LinTeractive, Shahane’s remit would be to provide creative answers to clients who are seeking cutting-edge digital solutions for their brands. He would oversee creative strategy and design for brands.

     

    LinTeractive has been witnessing promising growth in recent months with a host of clients making a beeline to lap up digital solutions being offered by the firm. With more than 25 clients in its fold including heavyweights like Woodland, Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital, Godrej, Karvy, Dabur etc LinTeractive is looked upon as a preferred agency for brands that’re looking for fresh and innovative online & offline ideas to achieve their stated objective.

     

    Welcoming Shahane onboard the team, Vikas Mehta said, “Since its reboot last year, LinTeractive has seen growth on all fronts – business, brands and clients. To sustain this momentum, it’s imperative for us to keep adding more fire-power to our digital ambitions. We’re thrilled to welcome Shahane on board. His upbringing in Lintas, coupled with his more recent successes in other digital companies will come in handy towards fulfilling our objective of mainlining digital.”

     

    A former Lowe Lintas hand, Shahane joins LinTeractive from Pinstorm where he held the post of VP – Creative. Prior to Pinstorm, Shahane has played senior roles in agencies like Y&R, Mudra, JWT Colombo and FCB Ulka.

     

    Commenting on his appointment, Shahane said, “Lowe Lintas is not just an advertising agency, it is looked upon as an institute of communication in this country. As a proud product of this institute, I am honoured to be a part of LinTeractive. Of late, digital has been adding new dimensions and has been at the forefront of creating new eco-systems for brands. Building great brands and creating more meaningful conversations around the brand, through new-age media and technology will be our mantra. In the constantly changing dynamic world of digital, the focus will be on smartly dividing challenge and opportunity to create magic around brands.”

     

    In his entire career span, Shahane has been instrumental in providing creative throughput and strategy to more than 50 brands across the sectors of FMCG, Automobiles, Media, Hotels & hospitality, Banking & Insurance, Fashion, Entertainment, Pharmaceutical etc.

     

    Shahane’s immense talent has resulted in him bagging a host of creative & effectiveness awards, both in India and overseas.

     

    When he is not working, Shahane spends his time pursuing other passions that span adventure sports, photography, being a jury member, sushi chef, playing chess, farming, teaching, etc. He also loves travelling, is an avid music lover, and is also the proud father to adorable twin girls.