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Tag: Alok Sinha

  • Initiative appoints Alok Sinha as chief strategy officer

    Initiative appoints Alok Sinha as chief strategy officer

    MUMBAI: IPG Mediabrands has appointed Alok Sinha as chief strategy officer in line with the agency’s transformational vision merging legacy with new-age dynamism.

    In his new role, Sinha will be driving Initiative’s strategic planning nationally and will be working collaboratively with all clients of the agency, including Amazon, Reckitt Benckiser, Bajaj Auto, Dish TV, Too Yumm, Anchor Electricals, and Carlsberg, to name a few.

    Sinha moves from Ogilvy & Mather, where he headed strategy for the northern region as president – planning. 

    “Alok comes with multifaceted experience which is rare to find – research, consumer insight, tools, media strategy and account planning in a creative agency. His coming on board is a demonstration of our commitment to raising Initiative’s strategy, tools and product to a whole new level. I am delighted to have him on board,” says IPG Mediabrands CEO Shashi Sinha. 

    Armed with a bachelor’s degree in Physics and an MBA in Marketing, Sinha began his career as a trainee with Lintas (now Lowe) in Mumbai with its research wing, Pathfinders. He then moved to the Gallup Organisation, where he managed to transform its smallest revenue client into its biggest.

    Seeking a more well-rounded exposure, Sinha then moved to the creative side and joined Ogilvy & Mather as a planner, where he worked on brands like IBM, Unilever and Vodafone. His stint in Ogilvy was followed by a long period in media agencies, including Carat and Mindshare, in multiple roles ranging from communication planning & business development to strategy and tools and process both in India and the Asia Pacific region.

    Talking about his association with Initiative, he said, “I am back to Media where my heart belongs. Initiative is in a process of transformation and I am thrilled to be part of this change.”

  • O&M makes senior hires; names Alok Sinha as president planning

    O&M makes senior hires; names Alok Sinha as president planning

    MUMBAI: With an aim to strengthen its top brass of management, the Gurgaon office of Ogilvy and Mather has made a number of additions to its senior management team – the prime one being the appointment of Alok Sinha as the president – planning.

     

    “As our business gets more dynamic and interconnected every day, we are constantly looking for leaders who can join the dots effectively and enable a better, more integrated creative product,” said Ogilvy North executive creative director Ajay Gahlaut.

     

    Sinha, who comes with over 20 years of experience across fields like research, advertising, media and digital, finds his new position at Ogilvy’s Gurgaon office as a “homecoming.”

     

    “I’m quite excited at the prospect of bringing a ‘no boundaries’ approach to account planning for clients – having traversed the entire spectrum myself. The communication business is at the confluence of two tectonic forces – content and data. Ogilvy Delhi has some of the most prestigious clients and talent in the country and my job is to try help both our clients and our talent effectively navigate this confluence for business success,” adds Sinha.

     

    Priot to this, Sinha led the strategic digital mandate for Mindshare in South Asia, where his focus was on strengthening Mindshare’s planning product and the strong integration of digital thinking on businesses including futuristic projects like the Loop Room. He has also had extensive experience across South East Asia, in a regional communications planning role at Aegis and subsequently as lead on the P&G businesses at Carat, Philippines.

     

    This move was the first amongst a series of new appointments that Ogilgy and Mather’s Gugaon office has undergone. The other key addition to the team is Chandana Agarwal, who has taken up the role of managing partner of the advertising function. 

     

    Agarwal has been with Soho Square and Ogilvy Gurgaon for over four years now. In her role as managing partner, she will work with Ogilvy Gurgaon branch head Kapil Arora to steward the advertising business of Ogilvy.

     

    This was followed by bringing Namrata Balwani on board as senior vice president and head of OgilvyOne, Gurgaon. Balwani moves in from Media2win, a digital agency she co-founded, where she was CEO.

     

    “I am excited to lead an amazing OgilvyOne team in Gurgaon. Digital platforms and connectivity, especially mobile, are transforming India at a speed never seen before. This is the best time to not only be a part of the transformation but also lead the charge and OgilvyOne is well poised to do that for all its brand partners,” Balwani said.

     

    Speaking on the new appointments, Arora said, “Over the last three years, the office has grown significantly across disciplines and we felt the need to bring in the right talent to help navigate our clients’ businesses through a rapidly changing environment. Between Alok, Chandana and Namrata, we have some of the best talent at hand, to fuel the creative product and to partner our clients in building their businesses.”

  • Mindshare appoints John Thangaraj as head – strategy (North)

    Mindshare appoints John Thangaraj as head – strategy (North)

    MUMBAI: Mindshare has appointed John Thangaraj as the head of strategy for the Northern region. In his new role, John will be responsible for the Mindshare strategy product across Delhi clients.

    Commenting on what he hopes to achieve at Mindshare John said, “First and foremost, I hope to future proof myself. I have a strong belief in the fact that ‘advertising‘ as is currently practiced in India does not have a shelf life of more than a decade (at the very most).”

    Announcing the appointment, leader – strategy (South Asia) Alok Sinha said, “We are glad to welcome John to Mindshare and the extended GroupM family. He’s got category and industry experience, and is a great team leader. I am confident he will be able to lead the strategy division to even greater heights.”

    John will be responsible for the Mindshare strategy product across Delhi clients

    Mindshare leader South Asia Ravi Rao said, “I am pleased to welcome John. He has the combination between being imaginative, strategic and entrepreneurial that our strategy community and clients need. Consumption of information and entertainment is rapidly moving screens and I feel that Mindshare is on the cutting edge of optimizing and leveraging this. ‘Digital‘ has become a buzz word we all love to throw around, and I am looking to Mindshare to help me make the journey from ‘thinking about digital‘ to ‘thinking digitally‘. Perhaps most of all, Mindshare represents a new journey for me- new skills to acquire, new people to meet and new challenges to deal with. Which is what excites me the most about it.” 

    John has over 12 years of work experience spanning a marketing role at Adidas, a research role at Quantum and as head of strategic planning for Redifffusion Y&R. In his last role John was vice president – strategic planning at Lowe, where he was responsible for the product planning on a cluster of brands that included Wills Lifestyle, Nestle Confectionary, Hindustan Times, Dabur Real, Shine.com, Woodland, Expedia.co.in and OLX.in.

    John is extremely proud of the Effie’s and Cannes that he has worked hard to win over the years. These include – Effie 2010 for Hindustan Times‘ ‘It Is Time‘ brand campaign, Effie 2012 for Hindustan Times‘ ‘You Read, They Learn‘ campaign, and Media Lion at Cannes 2013for Best Use of Print for Hindustan Times‘ ‘You Read, They Learn‘.

    He is also very proud of the work that he did when he led a global strategic project for LG Korea in 2009 on understanding the super affluent consumers in India.

  • Mindshare releases report on Gen Y entrepreneurs

    Mindshare releases report on Gen Y entrepreneurs

    MUMBAI: Mindshare has launched the first edition of its new quarterly trend series Culture Vulture which identifies the Entrepreneurial Spirit of the young generation (Gen Y) across 30 countries globally. The subjects considered for this study include those in the 17 to 32 age group.

    Culture Vulture combines two of Mindshare‘s business planning solutions – Mindreader, a global quantitative study covering 40,000 people across 40 countries globally; and Mindshare‘s Global Scout Network, a team of cultural cool hunters based across 38 cities worldwide.

    The report was led globally out of the agency‘s Asia-Pacific hub in Singapore and examines over 300 Gen Y entrepreneurial businesses across 38 cities including New York, Buenos Aires, London and Shanghai to understand how the youth‘s innovative ideas can inspire and fuel game-changing communication behaviour.

    Mindshare South Asia leader strategy Alok Sinha said, “Culture Vulture is a tool that we will be focusing on in India to dial up the cultural sensitivity of our strategy teams and deliver strong communication and media solutions that leverage cultural nuances. Mindshare is in the midst of executing a study, based on Geert Hofstede‘s cultural dimensions that will bring richness to this endeavor.”

    Culture Vulture head Catherine Williams said, “At the core of this first edition is the belief that businesses need a little bit of reverse mentoring from time to time- big blue chip companies can learn from the nimble and creative entrepreneurs of Gen Y.”

    The report identified 14 unique global trends that Gen Y has been pioneering to success in small to medium sized businesses. These include tips from trendsetting tech start-ups, channeling the power of advocacy and creating a genuine value proposition.

    Mindshare global business planning leader Marco Rimini said, “Understanding trends and popular culture actually tell us more about consumer behaviour than media consumption data ever could. Our Culture Vulture series has been created specifically to better inform our clients and teams of these trends and inspire original thinking in our media strategies.”

  • Key leadership changes at Mindshare

    Key leadership changes at Mindshare

    MUMBAI: Mindshare announced today a series of management changes and key appointments to strengthen the media agency and position it for long-term success.

    M Parthasarathy, currently the Leader-Business Planning, will now head the Client Leadership team.

    Alok Sinha will get to oversee Strategy enabling ‘no-line’ thinking across India. Sandeep Pandey, on the other hand, will spearhead Consulting & Intelligence which involves analytics and modeling for better ROMI (Return on Marketing investment).

    Anita Karnik will continue to handle Branded Entertainment and Activation. Jai Lala and Ashok Lalla will continue in their current roles managing Exchange and Digital.

    Mindshare South Asia leader Ravi Rao said, “With this infusion of senior talent and expertise, I am looking forward to beginning the year with the Mindshare mantra: Original thinking that brings in thought leadership, innovation that aids in brand growth. Fueled by great ideas, intelligence and analytics, the focus will be on growing our existing clients behind a strong strategy and thrust in digital.”

    The new appointments also include Rahul Thappa who comes in to manage North and rest of Mindshare South Asia. He has been entrusted with business operations in Pakistan, Srilanka and Bangladesh. He is back at Mindshare fold after a span of two years from his last position as MD of Mindshare Malaysia and the COO of Mail today.