By Our Staff
Senior advertising professional and entrepreneur Kurien Mathews passed away in Mumbai on Thursday. The news came as a shocker to family and friends given its suddenness.
With over three-and-a-half decades building brands, Kurien has had a deep interest in digital marketing, brand strategy, creative, content and, more recently, organic food. At the time of his passing, Kurien was Chairman and Managing Director at Metal Communications, Director, Rage Communications and Director, Conscious Food.
According to a profile on LinkedIn, he has helped build (and in some cases ushered in their India entry) brands like Sony, Nivea, Limca, Amul, Frooti, Samsonite, Platinum Guild, Bajaj Allianz, Electrolux, BPL Mobile, CNBC, Malayala Manorama, Yamaha, IndianOil Servo, Medimix, Dainik Bhaskar, Fortis, among many others.
Kurien’s book Brands Under Fire (co-authored with Ivan Arthur of JWT) was published by Penguin in 2008. He has served on the Managing Committee of the Advertising Agencies Association of India, AAAI Awards Jury, Trustee, Citizens for Peace and as Trustee of The Subhas Ghosal Foundation.
Kurien co-founded Anthem Communications in 1988, which became part of one of the world’s biggest and best agency brands, TBWA WW as TBWA\ Anthem in India. Kurien and his partners exited the Omnicom JV in 2008 handing over 100% ownership of one of India’s largest communications services groups with 350 people across 7 offices in India.
Whilst at TBWA\ Kurien also helped facilitate the entry of several Omnicom brands into India like Tequila and OMD.
In 2021, Kurien initiated and saw to fruition a JV between Rage Communication and ADK of Japan, leading to a 100% acquisition by 2023.
He also successfully led a mid-pandemic initiative to bring investment into Conscious Food in 2020, which helped grow the company four-fold in less than 30 months, laying the ground for a Series A fund raise in mid 2024.