He says, “I had been wanting to leverage this holistic experience in research, strategy planning and B2B marketing across brands for clients for quite some time now and felt this was the best way to enrich my learning curve further.”

Complementing him in this business venture are two other industry veterans, The Hive CEO Sushil Pandit who has previously served as Contract Advertising national media director and National Institute of Advertising (NIA) Delhi director Namrata Suri.

Ahluwalia adds, “All three of us bring certain strengths and value add-ons to the table. With Sushil’s expertise in overall media management including strategy, planning and buying and Namrata’s rich experience in successfully running a communications institute, media marketing and telecom industry expertise, we believe we will be able to execute the most relevant communications solutions for brands that help integrate their overall marketing gameplans.

"The Firm is neither the usual marketing consultancy nor the conventional ad agency but is positioned to offer customised solutions that best integrate a client’s need on one hand with the most appropriate communications mix on the other, thereby helping brands find their unique slots in otherwise product parity industry segments."

Ahluwalia started his career in 1987 in Operations Research Group (ORG, now AC Nielsen). He spent five years there before moving into brand planning in advertising for more than a decade in agencies including TBWA Anthem, Rediffusion DY&R and FS Advertising.