MUMBAI: Commonwealth, the global JV between McCann Erickson Worldwide and Goodby Silverstein & Partners, has appointed Rajesh Mani as the executive creative director.

Mani moved in from Leo Burnett, where he was working in the same capacity.

McCann Worldgroup South Asia president Prasoon Joshi said, "I am pleased that Rajesh Mani is a part of Commonwealth. He has tremendous experience and talent which will further strengthen the operation. I am positive that Rajesh will be instrumental in creating and delivering stellar quality work."

Mani brings in over 12 years of experience in the advertising industry. Prior to joining Leo Burnett in 2011, he was with Ogilvy for five years. Besides Leo Burnett and Ogilvy, he has also worked with Temple Advertising in Bangalore and Triton Communications in Mumbai.

Mani added, "Leo Burnett was a leap of faith and at Ogilvy I worked on one of the best brands in the country - Vodafone. Commonwealth offered an exciting prospect of working on one of the biggest car brands in the world at a global level and a rare opportunity to interact and imbibe from the best in the business - Prasoon Joshi, Jeff Goodby, Linus Karlsson and Washington Olivetto. On a global platform like Commonwealth, it is important to understand the finer points of cross-cultural communication challenges and pegging ideas on simple human truths that are geography agnostic. That said I think it's adrenaline time!"

At Ogilvy, he had partnered Ogilvy India ECD Rajiv Rao in creating the popular Blackberry Boys version 1 and penned the Blackberry boy's song. He has also done some acclaimed films like Hutch callertunes, Vodafone 60P/minute film and was also part of the core team that launched zoozoos.

At Leo Burnett he led the creative mandate for Tata Capital, HDFC Life and Bajaj Electricals.