ITV

Category: People

  • Reliance Jio president Sumit Chowdhury quits

    Reliance Jio president Sumit Chowdhury quits

    MUMBAI: Telecom operator giant Reliance Jio Infocomm president Sumit D Chowdhury has decided to put down his papers from the telco to begin his new venture. Speaking to PTI, Chowdhury said, “I have quit to start my own venture. It is in the field of smart cities.”

     

    Chowdhury had joined the company in September 2012 wherein he worked as the chief information officer (CIO) for a period of one year, before assuming a business leadership role. Here, he was responsible for building the ecosystem of companies that would help build solutions on top of Jio platforms and network to provide consumer services.

     

    Chowdhury’s exit comes a month after its managing director Sandeep Das was shifted to its sister concern Reliance Retail.   Last year in March, Arvind Rao who was looking after the innovation business and strategies for the company, put down his papers to pursue his own interest. Later in the year the company’s human resources head Steve Correa, also bid farewell to the company.

  • Leadership changes at Rediffusion Y&R and Everest

    Leadership changes at Rediffusion Y&R and Everest

    MUMBAI: In a move to strengthen its leadership, Rediffusion Y&R has elevated Kavita Kailas as the new chief strategy officer as well as promoted Prithviraj Banerjee as the strategy planning head at Everest Brand Solutions. This is in addition to his current role.

     

    Speaking on the development Rediffusion Y&R president Dhunji S Wadia said, “For quite some time Gautam Talwar has been nurturing the idea of pursuing interests beyond advertising.  And I think the time has come to allow him to follow his passions.  So after a hard working stint Gautam is taking a well-deserved break before deciding what his next chapter should be.  I thank him for all his help and support and wish him the very best in whatever he chooses to do.”

     

    On Kailas’ elevation, who has been heading the strategic planning function across Delhi, Kolkata and Southern operations, Dhunji said, “She is meant for this role.  Kavita has a great love of our business, our clients and our people that infuses all that she does. Unleashing her enthusiasm and her expertise will make a real difference in how we serve our clients.”

     

    On Banerjee, he added, “Prithvi’s passion for our agency, his intellectual curiosity and integrity, along with his deep collaborative way of working will make a difference to our clients and to our agency.”

  • Canon India elevates K. Bhaskhar

    Canon India elevates K. Bhaskhar

    MUMBAI: Digital imaging company Canon India has elevated K. Bhaskhar to vice president – office imaging solution (OIS) division.

     

    In his new role, Bhaskhar will front head the entire gamut of sales and marketing for the OIS group with a special focus on growing the Canon projector business, which will be re-launched for the Indian customers. He will also be taking care of growing the print room services business, a part of CBS and will help his team aggressively tap the medium and large printing segments.

     

    With aggressive growth plans, he will lead the OIS division and work towards making Canon the industry leader in the various businesses that comprise the division. He will be reporting directly to Canon India president and CEO Kazutada Kobayashi.

     

    Bhaskhar has been associated with Canon for over 17 years, working at different profiles in the enterprise domain of business solutions.

  • Mindshare appoints Prasanth Kumar as south Asia CEO

    Mindshare appoints Prasanth Kumar as south Asia CEO

    MUMBAI: Mindshare APAC, the global media agency network part of WPP, has appointed Prasanth Kumar or PK as he is popularly known, to the role of south Asia CEO.

     

    Currently head of GroupM’s Central Trading Group and a member of GroupM’s south Asia executive committee, PK will report to GroupM south Asia CEO CVL Srinivas and Mindshare Asia Pacific COO Gowthaman Ragothaman.

     

    The announcement was made following the news that the current CEO, Ravi Rao will be transitioning into a new role within GroupM, the details of which will be announced shortly.

     

    Srinivas commented, “Prasanth was a unanimous choice for this role. He is a very dynamic leader always full of ideas and a true organisation man. In the past ten years he has played a stellar role in ensuring GroupM’s scale is leveraged to maximise value for our clients. He has championed some exciting partnerships for GroupM both in the digital and traditional media spaces. I am sure under his leadership Mindshare will scale new peaks and delight its clients with a quality media product. I’d like to thank Ravi Rao for his contribution and wish him the very best in his new role within the network.”

     

    Kumar’s role is effective 1 March 2015.

  • Leo Burnett appoints Karen Ellis as global creative director for SK-II

    Leo Burnett appoints Karen Ellis as global creative director for SK-II

    MUMBAI: Leo Burnett has roped in Karen Ellis as its global creative director for SK-II. She will be based out of Singapore.

     
    “Karen’s outstanding body of work across fashion, luxury and beauty is truly one of a kind and a great fit for SK-II. With Karen on board, we are looking forward to bring about a transformation to the team not just at the global hub in Singapore, but across the world to create work that will further enhance SK-II as one of the leading luxury skincare brands, not just in Asia, but globally,” said Leo Burnett Asia Pacific chairman and CEO Jarek Ziebinski.

     

    Ellis is an award-winning specialist with 20 years experience in design and advertising exclusively for the fashion, luxury and beauty industries. She spent 10 years in New York creating numerous worldwide celebrity campaigns for global beauty brands including Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, Avon and Revlon. She then took this expertise to London, where over the span of 10 years she lead creative on numerous beauty brands but most notably on Hugo Boss global franchise of fragrances.

     
    As global creative director she has worked across Boss Black, Boss Orange and Hugo. She has won Gold Euro EFFIE for her work on Boss Orange Woman, a FWA (Favourite Website Awards) in Digital for “Always Night” (Boss Bottled Night), fragrance FIFI’s and numerous others. Most recently she has been working in Asia, grounding herself with Asian insights and working across markets (India-ASEAN) to create regional campaigns on beauty care.

     

  • Ogilvy & Mather India establishes new management structure

    Ogilvy & Mather India establishes new management structure

    MUMBAI: Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) India has put in place a new management structure, which will be effective 1 March, 2015.

     

    The announcement was made by O&M executive chairman and creative director – South Asia Piyush Pandey and O&M executive co-chairman and group chief operating officer – South Asia SN Rane.

     

    In a statement, the duo said, “It is time that our very strong senior team joins us in all key management decisions of Ogilvy & Mather. Our clients should look forward to even greater impact from Ogilvy & Mather in the days ahead.”

     

    In the new structure, the current Ogilvy India group chief digital officer Kunal Jeswani is promoted to Ogilvy & Mather India CEO. He will report directly to the chairmen’s office and will work in very close association with Geo/discipline heads, creative, planning and business leaders.

     

    The current Ogilvy India executive finance director Hufrish Birdy is promoted to chief financial officer (CFO). She will also report directly to the chairmen’s office and work in close partnership with Jeswani, Geo and discipline heads and other key stake holders of the company.

     

    Hephzibah Pathak will assume a new role as Ogilvy & Mather India global clients’ director. She will be associated with Vodafone, Mondelez (India+Global), KFC, Unilever, Coke and Fiat. Pathak, working with operation heads of 360 degree offerings, will be responsible for delivery that will meet client expectations. A detailed scope of work is being circulated amongst Geo/discipline heads and their business leaders.

     

    The man who can be credited in building strong planning teams, Kawal Shoor has been promoted to national planning director. He will spearhead the next phase of development of planning and be responsible for the national planning agenda.

     

    To top it all, the board of directors list has also been expanded. The existing India board comprising Pandey, Rane, Madhukar Sabnavis, Poran Malani, Pathak, Miles Young, Paul Heath, Paul Cocks and John Goodman is being expanded. The company has nominated Jeswani (CEO, India), Rajiv Rao (national creative director), Navin Talreja (president – Mumbai and Kolkata geography head) and Birdy (CFO, India) as additional Directors, which will be effective as soon as the legal compliances are completed.

     

  • Saavn hires Mahesh Narayanan as global COO

    Saavn hires Mahesh Narayanan as global COO

    MUMBAI: Indian music streaming service Saavn is kicking off 2015 with a new appointment. The company has appointed Mahesh Narayanan as its global chief operating officer.

     

    Based out of Mumbai, Narayanan will oversee numerous functions of the company to encourage growth and support Saavn’s expansion in 2015. 

     

    Narayanan, who brings a decade of digital experience to Saavn, most recently led the India operations for German display advertising company, Sociomantic, which was acquired by Dunnhumby in April 2014, less than a year after he helped launch the company’s Mumbai-based operations.

     

    Prior to that he played a major role in planting the seeds of growth for Google India. He was the founding member of Google’s Direct Sales Operations in 2005, before joining the leadership team of mobile advertising network, AdMob. Following Google’s acquisition of AdMob in 2010, Narayanan returned to Google as mobile head for India.

     

    “Mahesh is an elite executive who is recognized as one of the top digital leaders in the world and brings a bright, uniquely experienced perspective to Saavn. He’ll be involved in 360 degrees of the company to help make everyone better and bring us into the next chapter of growth and revenue. We’re honored to have Mahesh on board, and he has already made a tremendous impact on the organization in his first few weeks with us. Businesses are built off great people. Mahesh is one of the best,” said Saavn co-founder and CEO Rishi Malhotra.

     

    “I am most passionate about digital technology and music. Saavn represents my vision of the ideal blend of both passions most aptly. I’ve had the opportunity to help many leading global technology media companies achieve success, and I genuinely believe that Saavn is primed for the same caliber of success. I am really excited about partnering with Rishi and the leadership team to take Saavn to a whole new league,” added Narayanan.

     

    Narayanan joins Saavn as the company enters its most significant phase of growth. In addition to crossing user thresholds (30 million unique users in 2014; 11 million monthly streaming users), Saavn is announcing several major milestones, including:

     

    1) Entering the 10-50 million downloads tier on Android, making it the most downloaded Indian music service in Google Play (International).  

    2) 6x increase in Saavn Pro subscribers from Q1 2014.

    3) 3x increase in streaming volume from Q1 2014.

    4) Approaching 200 million streams per month.

    5) 90% of users are on mobile.

     

    Saavn closed 2014 with partnerships with companies like Twitter, T-Mobile and Snapdeal, an industry-first content initiative with Sony Music, and a year-end infographic celebrating Saavn’s most active cities and users.

     

  • George Kovoor joins OgilvyOne India

    George Kovoor joins OgilvyOne India

    MUMBAI:  OgilvyOne Worldwide has appointed George Kovoor as senior creative director, OgilvyOne Mumbai.

     

    He will partner with senior creative director Burzin Mehta to lead digital creative for OgilvyOne, Mumbai.

     

    OgilvyOne Worldwide India president Vikram Menon said, “George Kovoor’s experience, understanding of brands and his skill in digital story telling will make him a huge asset to the team.”

     

    With over 20 years in the business, Kovoor’s work has been recognised by the AAAI, ABBIES, IDMA, Campaign Brief and Yahoo Big Idea Chair. In his previous role at Digitas LBI, he led the teams that created integrated communication solutions for clients like Tata Motors, Johnson & Johnson, Budweiser, Vespa and Siemens; his brand experience also covers work on brands such as L&T, Mahindra, Unilever, ITC, Wipro. 

     

  • Rediffusion Y&R appoints JWT’s Suman Varma as head of operations

    Rediffusion Y&R appoints JWT’s Suman Varma as head of operations

    MUMBAI: Rediffusion Y&R has appointed JWT India VP and executive business director Suman Varma as head of operations, Delhi.

     

    Varma, who was with JWT for 22 years, will be reporting to Rediffusion Y&R president Dhunji S Wadia and add to the company’s leadership team.

     

    Dhunji said, “I’m delighted to welcome Suman to Rediffusion Y&R. She brings the right mix of talent, experience and enthusiasm that we seek to inject into our talent pool. Her strong leadership skills will enhance the quality of the work that we do for our clients and add value to their brands.”

     

    Varma added, “After a successful stint of 22 years with JWT and extensive associations with some of the most robust marketing companies, I am now seeking to leverage the depth and width of my experience in leading the Rediffusion-Y&R, Delhi team to greater success. Leaving the comfort of JWT was a tough call, but the thought of joining Rediffusion Y&R and teaming up with Dhunji was exciting. I look forward to the new challenges ahead.”

  • Interbrand India ropes in Ashoo Advani as brand strategy – associate director

    Interbrand India ropes in Ashoo Advani as brand strategy – associate director

    MUMBAI: Interbrand India has brought on-board Ashoo Advani as associate director – brand strategy. Based out of Mumbai, Advani will work closely with Interbrand India MD Ashish Mishra on the agency’s client roster.

     

    Advani said, “Since my B-school days, brand valuation has been an area of interest. It is the ultimate metric for any brand and there is no organization in the world that comes close to Interbrand in brand valuation expertise. I am excited about learning and using the global best practices of managing brands.”

     

    Mishra believed that the war for talent is accelerating and globally Interbrand’s people’s skills are considered as a benchmark. According to Mishra, the agency clearly wants the select few who can do justice to the company’s reputation and the ones who can be trusted with transformational value creation through brands and are valued for it too.

     

    “For far too long the brands and branding world in India has remained reconciled to the easy and interesting second half of expression. We want people capable of pulling back the conversation into the non-existent first half of strategic definition, both respectfully and profitably and I am happy and confident that with Ashoo on board with us, we can help make this happen,” stated Mishra.

     

    Advani brings to the agency an experience of over a decade in brand communications and strategy development. His expertise pans largely around developing brand communication for new and existing brands. He joins Interbrand from Chlorophyll where he was senior brand planner. Prior to Chlorophyll, Advani was associated with Ogilvy & Mather where he exclusively worked with Asian Paints and managed development of communication for 22 different product brands. He has also worked with Lowe earlier in his career.

     

     

    An MBA from Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines; he believes in saving the world from the overuse of the word brand. For doing his share, he is associated with Xavier Institute of Communications as a guest faculty member for Corporate and Product Branding, where he interacts with students and clarifies their ideas about branding.