Category: SPECIALS

(Experience: 15 years)

With a professional career spanning 15 years, Sonali began her journey with Grey 15 years ago as a Media Planner. From there, she moved on to HTA before she got married and had to leave the country for the next 12 years.

She worked in Dubai and Australia with ZO, OMD and even did a three year stint in consumer research. Having had enough of the outside world, Sonali came back to Mindshare and closer to her home. Since then, she has been working as Client Leader with Mindshare Gurgaon.

Sharing an anecdote from the past, Sonali says: “I remember when I was doing my PG, and showed inclination towards Client Servicing, one of my mentors wryly commented: “here goes another one, she’d rather chase artworks and function as an exalted courier and not use her brains towards making a difference”. It almost felt wrong not to do something about such a strong statement… Well, here I am today and you don’t see me complaining…so I guess something I must have done something right many years ago…

(Experience: 15 years)

Ruma Sengupta presently works for MPG India, Havas Media Group, as Chief Strategy Officer, India. Ruma comes with 15 years of experience and expertise across Marketing, Branding, Innovation, Sales & Distribution & Ms. Ruma’s diverse experience also includes working in senior marketing roles at Adlabs Films Limited owned by Reliance ADAG, United Spirits Limited at UB Group and Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited. She was most recently with Synovate as Director-Business Insight, where she was responsible for key international clients across FMCG categories. Ruma’s longest stint has been with Ranbaxy Global Consumer Healthcare, where she launched OTC & DTC business and managed it successfully through marketing and sales-distribution.

Based out of Mumbai, Ruma works closely with MPG’s four key offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, to take charge of the agency’s strategic offering and product development in keeping with the vision of Leading New Thinking. She also takes custodianship of Havas Media’s proprietary tools and processes. Ruma reports into S K Biswas, Chief Strategy Officer – APAC of Havas Media, based out of Singapore.

As to what made media planning & buying her profession of choice, she says: “Conceptualizing and managing Media strategy comes naturally to anyone with a branding & marketing exposure, but very few cross over from corporate side to the media side. I chose to do so because I was keen on a strategy role and one that will optimally use my marketing & business management skills. In MPG, this is possible because here the client’s business is managed with a marketing focus. The thought leadership and the use of differentiated strategic tools geared more towards marketing objective of the brand highly motivated me to consider joining the media side of business.”

(Experience: 13 years)

Shailja Vohra has been part of the Television Industry for over 13 years. Her work has taken her to over two continents Europe and Asia for content sourcing. She has hands-on experience of television programming, content strategy, acquisition, advertising revenue generation and consulting for the NGO sector.

She has a special passion for TV and film acquisition and has extensive knowledge of the same. Being part of the start-up teams of new ventures, she has successfully acquired content for several channels. Shailja has a unique perspective and first hand experience of lifestyle, infotainment and word movies space. She has an innate awareness of cultural sensitivities and audience needs, and the expertise required to run the programming of a Pay TV channel. Shailja is a strategist and planner, and is a detail-oriented professional, organized and systematized in her approach to work.

Prior to ESP Maxus, Shailja has worked for Fox Traveler channel where she headed the Acquisition responsibilities for the Network. Prior to that, she was appointed as the Acquisition and Operations head for National Geographic & Fox International Channels in India. As a special assignment she was instrumental in sourcing the best history and travel content for Fox History and Entertainment and Fox Traveler channel (first Travel channel of India). There she was responsible for laying down the acquisition guidelines and content strategy. In 2009, she did content consulting with FOX channel, wherein she devised content strategy for Fox History and Entertainment channel. In 2007 she turned her focus to movie genre. She got involved in programming, producing both live and filmed television content for UTV World Movies (India’s first international movie channel). Earlier in 2004, Shailja turned her passion towards her true calling – Programming for Discovery Channel, Animal Planet. Later she was assigned the senior role of Acquisition and Programming for Discovery Travel and Living channel (TLC- India’s first lifestyle channel).

As for her entry into them domain, Shailja started her career media in T.V. advertising revenue generation with Zee Networks and later continued in the same field with Discovery Channel and Animal Planet till the end of 2003. In the short span of 4 years she was a star performer. She was duly recognized by the company at regular intervals, making her one of the youngest managers in the company. Her style was well appreciated by the industry which was a mix of innovation and research. She has good business sense and is an ace at negotiating the best deals. In that period she managed to generate many ideas and trivia’s for her clients base to name a few; Nestle, Goodyear, Samsung, Hughes Software, Canon.

Apart from work, she has tremendous liking to a few hobbies like writing poems (she has a collection of over 100 poems), penning down her thoughts in her blog, charcoal sketching, yoga instructor at the Art of Living Foundation, etc.

(Experience: 11 years)

Rajni is a graduate from MICA with experience across functional areas like Strategic Planning, Buying, Digital Integration etc. she is currently heading Strategic Planning, Trading & Training in Aegis Media. Her earlier roles include National Trading Head for Unilever at Mindshare Fulcrum,  Investment lead on PepsiCo, Motorola, Castrol, and Onida.

In the past, Rajni Menon has worked with GroupM, Lintas Media Group, McCann Erickson, Zenith Optimedia and Madison Communications, on brands such as Maruti Suzuki, Coca Cola India, Reckitt Benckiser, Gillette and Bacardi.

Sharing her tryst with media she said: “When I was entering the world of advertising, Media was just coming into its own and offered immense possibilities of new thinking. Even after more than a decade it is still evolving and there’s something new to learn every day.”

Experience: 12 years

Alka Pillai has been into media planning for the past 12 years. She has worked on different categories and with different clients like P&G, Godrej, Essel group, Pidilite, TTN, Lodha, Tata AIG, Blue Star.

“I got into media planning because it is very dynamic and every day is action oriented. Being in media gives me the dual advantage of interacting with smart professionals from both, the clients’ and channel’s end. It allows me to gain fresh perspective on things every single day.”

(Experience: 14 years)

Sujata has done her post graduation in Communications, and has worked with agencies like Media Com (6+yrs), Starcom (2yrs), and Lodestar Universal (6+ yrs). She has handled a strong portfolio of clients including Marico, Gujarat Ambuja, Kelloggs, Heinz, Bisleri, Kelloggs, Birla Life Insurance, L’Oreal, Mahindra & Mahindra, Nerolac, Conagra, Abbott, etc.

On the reason for opting for this field, she said: “I have always felt comfortable with numbers, my friends who knew of this advised me to consider media planning so I chose to come into this field.” In fact Sujata Pawar is fortunate enough to have worked with senior media professionals like Shashi Sinha, Nandini Dias, Jasmine Sohrabji, Harish Shriyan, Divya Gupta, Gita Ram, Andre Purshottam & Ravi Kiran.

Sounding her mantra for all to practice, she said: “It is important to be constantly learning new things for mental stimulation and growth. In Lodestar UM, handling both planning & buying really helped groom understanding & thinking on Media as a whole in its entirety.”

Young, well qualified and trained Lara Balsara is all set to take her father Sam Balsara’s legacy further – not only in terms of steering Madison Communications to a new level, but also in her acumen for all things media and peripheral to it. A Graduate in Economics from St Xavier’s College, she embellished her inherent skills with a Masters in Marketing from Bristol University. In a brief conversation with Ritu Midha, Lara Balsara talks about her work mantras and more.

What is your take on work-life balance?

If you want to succeed at the work place, there is no such thing as work- life balance. You have to be available 24/7 during weekdays for sure. The “balance” comes from taking frequent short breaks over the weekend and pursuing a hobby.

Women like yourself are scaling great heights in media industry. Why do you think, media planning and buying attract so many women professionals?

Advertising as an industry attracts a lot of women.

Do you believe that in a few professions, women still have to work harder than men to prove their worth?

Maybe in some other professions, but not in advertising and media for sure. Women might find it a bit more challenging because they have to manage work and home.

Moving to marketing, do women look for emotional quotient in the brand marketing – or is it now logic all the way?

It would be a combination of both and would also depend on the product category.

Lastly, how would you define a diva?

A diva is someone who is confident and comfortable in her own skin and who sets new trends and benchmarks and doesn’t necessarily follow trends or people.

(Experience: 14 years)

Priti Murthy is National Director – Insights at Maxus India. She has over 14 years of experience working and advising companies across FMCG, Financial Services, Telcos, Retail, Publication Houses, Media and Television. Priti in her various roles, has been responsible for strategic planning for one of the largest media planning business houses in India – Maxus of GroupM (a WPP Group company).

Currently, Priti is part of the Maxus India Managing Committee and is responsible for driving strategic initiatives with all major clients of Maxus.

She started her career with Creative Unit (agency of Magna Group) as planner and rose to drive the strategic planning and implementation roles with various clients across various verticals. She has also been part of Publicis and Media Edge. Priti has advised various prominent companies including Vodafone, Nokia, Perffetti, Parle, Britannia, Dabur, Hero Honda, Tata Chemicals (Salt), L’Oreal (Planning)  Colgate-Palmolive, Shoppers Stop, Stanchart Bank and Hutch.

Priti is extensively quoted in Media and is also part of GroupM trainers – that focuses on delivering excellence in training team on Content and related skills.

(Experience: 11 years)

Kanupriya Seyal has over 10 years of experience in Strategic Planning and Buying for clients across categories such as FMCG, telecom, mobile handsets, retail, on-line travel, media houses, apparels, liquor, real estate and white goods. This journey of over a decade has been filled with challenges, excitement and learning.

Talking about her beginnings, Kanupriya said: “I cut my media planning teeth at Lodestar Universal where I worked on Madura Garments, General Motors and Bacardi before moving to Mudra to provide specialized holistic strategic solutions to clients such as Electrolux, Amway and Dabur. I was instrumental in winning multiple new businesses such as Spice, Hotspot and Yatra.com among others for the agency. I was also leading the team responsible for the Media launch of these brands.”

She joined MPG in 2009 to spearhead the investment planning on one of the largest advertisers in a highly competitive category: Reckitt Benckiser to improve the ROI through structured buying and increased innovative usage of various mediums.

Beyond Reckitt, Kanupriya has developed buying strategies for MTS and other MPG clients. She has added value to the client business through high level of commitment, passion and application of cross functional skills of planning and buying.

“I always found something interesting and stimulating in all my jobs. Having been nurtured in this vibrant and aggressive environment, my pursuit has always been new and loftier pinnacles of performance, which continues to spur me on. I have been ambitious for the brands that I steward. My award winning contributions include: a bronze for the category of “Best use of Sponsorship” at Goafest Media Awards 2008 and the Young Media Turks Award organized by NDTV.”

Kanupriya has a PGD with specialization in Marketing and Graduation in Advertising from Delhi University. Kanupriya said that she was prompted to take up this field as there aren’t many jobs which allow creativity and strategies to come to life to be observed by thousands of people. “Work results are very apparent and I felt that can result in a very satisfying career. It is one interesting field where one is not restricted to think within a square room.”

Kanupriya said that she has good critical thinking skills in terms of being able to evaluate information and analyze its relevance and meaning – which she felt was crucial to succeed in this field.

(Work experience: 11 yrs)

Sanchita started her career in media planning some 11 years ago and has worked across agencies like Carat, Mindshare and OMD. During her stint across agencies, she has had the fortune of working on key accounts like Berger Paints, National Insurance, Tea Board, Lafarge India and Airtel (East Circle). She currently manages the skincare portfolio for J&J comprising of brands like Neutrogena & Clean & Clear.

On her most memorable moment yet, Roy shared: “Have been a part of the core team that worked on the biggest back to college activation program for Clean & Clear called “FRESH FACE” in partnership with Times of India based on strong consumer insights around TG. The campaign resulted in establishing C&C as the teen and went on to win an ABBY GOLD in Youth Marketing Category at Goafest 2011 and other J&J internal awards.”

On what made her chose media planning and buying as a career option, she said: “Choosing media planning & buying has never been a conscious choice for me. Having said that once I started I have enjoyed every moment of it.”

Experience: 13 years

Atrayee Chakraborty is a Master of Economics from Presidency College, Kolkata. She pursued her MBA in marketing from Institute of Business Management, Jadhavpur University. Currently, she is the Business Head on Colgate Palmolive at MEC, GroupM.

Talking about her career graph, Atrayee said: “I started my career in the media industry 12 years ago, I have worked with HTA, Kolkata under Indrani Sen. I then moved to Lintas, Mumbai in 2002, where I worked for seven and a half years across multiple portfolios, both in media and in account planning. Thereafter, I joined MEC in 2010 to head the Colgate-Palmolive media business.”

Atrayee said that since childhood she has enjoyed watching advertising on television, “At times even more than good old programming”. As she grew up, she decided to study marketing and join an ad agency. Media planning became the obvious choice as she felt that she is “more left brain oriented than right… I love numbers and have an analytical bend of mind”.

She feels lucky to get her first break in HTA and work under Indrani Sen: “She was my mentor and responsible for creating my strong base in media planning. Since then I have never got bored of this profession…I enjoy every moment in my professional life without any regret or feeling of compromise.”

(Experience: 10 years)

Currently Florinda Fernandes is into both Business Development and Client Servicing. The profile includes everything right from pitching for a new business till the campaign ends. The entire process in terms of strategizing, planning, innovation and execution as a whole is Florinda’s forte.

Explaining her work, Florinda said: “Outdoor is one of the domains in the media fraternity wherein every day is a new day. Each day has a challenge as the industry is unpredictable. It is undergoing changes and evolving into a new platform. Today, we speak on the lines of innovation, convergence and globalization. It’s becoming more consumer-centric and holistic thinking, thus making it more challenging and realistic. I am more than happy to be a part of it, and see it grow.”