MUMBAI: With an aim to strengthen its top brass of management, the Gurgaon office of Ogilvy and Mather has made a number of additions to its senior management team – the prime one being the appointment of Alok Sinha as the president - planning.

“As our business gets more dynamic and interconnected every day, we are constantly looking for leaders who can join the dots effectively and enable a better, more integrated creative product,” said Ogilvy North executive creative director Ajay Gahlaut.

Sinha, who comes with over 20 years of experience across fields like research, advertising, media and digital, finds his new position at Ogilvy’s Gurgaon office as a “homecoming.”

“I’m quite excited at the prospect of bringing a ‘no boundaries’ approach to account planning for clients – having traversed the entire spectrum myself. The communication business is at the confluence of two tectonic forces – content and data. Ogilvy Delhi has some of the most prestigious clients and talent in the country and my job is to try help both our clients and our talent effectively navigate this confluence for business success,” adds Sinha.

Priot to this, Sinha led the strategic digital mandate for Mindshare in South Asia, where his focus was on strengthening Mindshare’s planning product and the strong integration of digital thinking on businesses including futuristic projects like the Loop Room. He has also had extensive experience across South East Asia, in a regional communications planning role at Aegis and subsequently as lead on the P&G businesses at Carat, Philippines.

This move was the first amongst a series of new appointments that Ogilgy and Mather’s Gugaon office has undergone. The other key addition to the team is Chandana Agarwal, who has taken up the role of managing partner of the advertising function. 

Agarwal has been with Soho Square and Ogilvy Gurgaon for over four years now. In her role as managing partner, she will work with Ogilvy Gurgaon branch head Kapil Arora to steward the advertising business of Ogilvy.

This was followed by bringing Namrata Balwani on board as senior vice president and head of OgilvyOne, Gurgaon. Balwani moves in from Media2win, a digital agency she co-founded, where she was CEO.

“I am excited to lead an amazing OgilvyOne team in Gurgaon. Digital platforms and connectivity, especially mobile, are transforming India at a speed never seen before. This is the best time to not only be a part of the transformation but also lead the charge and OgilvyOne is well poised to do that for all its brand partners,” Balwani said.

Speaking on the new appointments, Arora said, “Over the last three years, the office has grown significantly across disciplines and we felt the need to bring in the right talent to help navigate our clients’ businesses through a rapidly changing environment. Between Alok, Chandana and Namrata, we have some of the best talent at hand, to fuel the creative product and to partner our clients in building their businesses.”