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Tag: Srikant Sastri

  • Serial entrepreneur Srikant Sastri to mentor digital news venture Nyoooz.com

    NEW DELHI: In an age when most established news organisations, including the new-kid-on-the-block Republic TV, have digital news portals to augment reach, one of the first few to get into this space, news media veteran Alok Verma and his Nyoooz.com have roped in serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Singapore-based big data company Crayon Data Srikant Sastri as a mentor.

    Sastri, who has also joined the board of Newzstreet Media Private Limited, parent of Nyoooz.com, will help the company sharpen its focus on micro-revenue opportunities and a methodology to deliver value to its clients.

    Apart from Sastri, Raja Shukla has joined Nyoooz.com as the national sales head. Raja, an accomplished media sales professional, will drive the digital sales and content-led sales both at the national and city levels. His earlier stints had been in organisations like Gram Vani, Zee Media, The Indian Express group and The Times of India group.

    Commenting on the new leadership team, Nyoooz.com founder and editor-in-chief Verma said, “Srikant Sastri will help Nyoooz.com to focus on quantitative and qualitative improvisations in the way local news content is generated and served using technological innovations and will mentor not only the team, but also me, while Raja’s presence will add more zing to our sales as we look to consolidate our core base and also explore spreading wings.”

    One of the early entrants into the digital space, Nyoooz.com serves contextual and relevant local news for and from tier II and tier III cities in India with a primary focus on Northern India. Presently, the company serves and covers news of and from about 70 cities and has an audience reach of 3.5 million in text news and 6 million in video news, including latest blockbuster the IPL 2017 cricket matches.

    Verma, a journalist of over 30-year standing, has held senior news management positions, including that of the editor, in media groups such as TV Today Network, Zee Media and Star India. The entrepreneurship bug bit him when he sensed the importance of the digital space.

    Nyoooz.com curates all important news stories of target cities from trustworthy and competent publishers from across the web. It uses its TrueView algorithm’s to scan and fetch news published about 70 individual cities across India. Subscribers can customize their unique news feed after registering to gather news from the cities they love.

  • Srikant Sastri stepping down from his role as a country chair

    Srikant Sastri stepping down from his role as a country chair

    MUMBAI: In his more than two and a half decades of experience Vivaki country chair Srikant Sastri will be stepping down from his position on 1 July.

    Vivaki CEO Frank Voris said, “Sastri will continue to serve in a consulting capacity for Publicis Groupe in the near term, while also nurturing start-up companies in India and Asia-Pacific as an independent investor and operating partner as it is his desire to work with a new companies. But, he agreed to help the organisation on-board Neev, Resultrix and Convonix.”

    “Srikant has successfully orchestrated three acquisitions and integrations that have simultaneously fortified the founding Vivaki agencies, while also solidifying Publicis Groupe‘s position as the leading digital marketing operation in India,” added Voris

    For the foreseeable future, Sastri will continue to work closely with VivaKi and also with Razorfish & DigitasLBi in a consulting capacity. For the former, he will surface and evaluate emerging opportunities, exploring tech start-ups who can benefit the agencies of Publicis Groupe and their clients. For Razorfish and Digitas-LBi India.

    VivaKi Country Chair Srikant Sastri: “I‘ve successfully completed a big mandate as VCC in India and I am absolutely thrilled that we achieved the goal we set for ourselves 18 months ago—driving digital dominance in India through organic growth and three key acquisitions. We are now twice the size of our largest competitor. With this mission accomplished, I‘d like to focus more on three areas that I am passionate about. In addition to working with start-ups, I intend to foster the Indian start-up eco-system by actively leading key initiatives at professional and trade bodies, including The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) and Indian Angel Network. I will also help drive the growth of ventures that are focused on social enterprises and other Indian development issues.”

    Sastri has started his career from Ponds India as a regional sales manager than he has also worked with Tara Sinha Associates, TSME, McCann Erickson, Team4U, Solutions Integrated Marketing Services and Growth-For-All.

  • Publicis launches Razorfish in India with Neev acquisition

    MUMBAI: France-based media communications group Publicis Groupe has acquired Bengaluru-based technology services provider Neev as part of launching its digital entity Razorfish in India.

    The agency will operate as Razorfish Neev led by Neev CEO Saurabh Chandra. He will report into Razorfish and Digitas India managing director Kanika Mathur with a direct connection to Razorfish global CTO Ray Velez.

    Neev specialises in eCommerce, SaaS (Software as a Service) and cloud applications across web, social and mobile.

    Founded in 2005 and based in Bangalore, Neev employs a team of 250 specialists, of which over 220 are technologists, with experience and expertise in leveraging cloud and mobile technologies and promoting innovation that drives business success.

    Neev serves a growing list of prominent brands and technology companies mainly in India and the US. Neev has increased revenues on average 45 percent year-on-year since 2007.

    “Razorfish can now offer scaled expertise in India, complementing its already strong presence in Greater China and Australia,” Razorfish and Digitas networks APAC president Vincent Digonnet.

    “At the core of Razorfish lies innovation and technology, and we can only launch the brand in a market with a very deep tech development capability. Neev is providing us with the right engine, including an ability to deliver sophisticated state of the art web, ecommerce, mobile and social solutions. In addition, the acquisition will support the development capabilities of Razorfish technology teams in the US,” he adds.

    Neev CEO Saurabh Chandra said, “Neev has always delivered its work by leveraging leading edge technologies in cloud and mobility. With Razorfish we are looking at taking this to a larger portfolio of clients. Our focus remains delivering solutions to our clients that solve real business problems with the best combination of creativity and technology.”

    Publicis Groupe‘s goal is to create the world‘s leading concentration of digital skills and competencies and to that end is committed to doubling its size in India between 2010 and 2015.

    This year, the Groupe acquired the leading digital agency Convonix based in Mumbai and back in 2012 made significant acquisitions with iStrat (December 2012), Resultrix (August 2012) and Indigo Consulting (April 2012).

    VivaKi India country chair for Srikant Sastri, who is overseeing the acquisition of Neev added, “With the acquisition of Neev, we have added cutting-edge tech capabilities. We are now twice as large as any other global network in terms of digital team-strength and revenues, and unparalleled in breadth and depth of digital skills.”

  • Tarun Nigam to lead VivaKi Partnerships’ operations

    Tarun Nigam to lead VivaKi Partnerships’ operations

    MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi Exchange has appointed Tarun Nigam as COO for Vivaki Partnerships.He will be based in New Delhi and report directly to VivaKi Exchange CEO Mona Jain.

    Vivaki Partnerships is the special unit housed under VivaKi Exchange that pursuses partnerships with local full service agencies and media agencies in Tier 2 & 3 markets across the country.

    Nigam has over eighteen years of experience. The first four years were in pioneer TV production and marketing house United Television [UTV] and next eight in WPP Media [Mindshare, Maxus and MediaCom]. Most recently he was at Starcom MediaVest Group.

    In his stint at WPP‘s various agencies, he worked on accounts such as Gillette, Ranbaxy, Hero Honda, LG Electronics, American Express, NIIT and Monte Carlo. Before he moved as office head for MediaCom Delhi earlier this year, he led several clients at Maxus, including the large and complex Hero Honda AOR. At Starcom, he has serviced Samsung, Aircel, Educomp and many other clients. Most recently, Tarun played a key role in streamlining SMG India’s operations by taking on the additional responsibility of National Director Business Impact.

    VivaKi Exchange CEO Mona Jain said, “Our game is changing. To write the next chapter of VivaKi Partnerships, we were looking for someone who has the right mix of maturity and hunger, someone with a broad exposure to communication and marketing and who comes with a business, not just media, bias. Tarun fits the bill nicely.”

    Nigam said, “I really liked the model of VivaKi partnerships and felt that the role is the right fit for me. I am looking forward to taking VivaKi partnerships to the next level”

    VivaKi India country chair Srikant Sastri, said, “Over the past two years, we have achieved tremendous success in building a viable model for Tier 2&3 markets, as well as small advertisers. We are now moving from a start-up phase to a growth phase by putting a stronger organization in place.”

    The partnerships that Vivaki Partnerships deals with are in the form of exclusive relationships to support the agencies on their strategic product, and provide value-added services. Additionally, VivaKi Partnerships also works with small size advertisers to help them achieve better pricing value on their media spends.