MUMBAI: Karthik Lakshminarayan joins Madison Media as COO of Crest. In his new role, he will head the ITC AOR. He will be alternating between the Bangalore and Kolkata operations of ITC.

Lakshminarayan comes with over 16 years of experience in media having worked in media agencies like Madison Media, Initiative Media and Starcom as well as with media channels like Colors and FoodFood. Across his career, he has worked on a large and diverse portfolio of brands like Godrej, Cadbury, Marico, Asian Paints, Bharti Axa, Infosys, Britannia, Titan, Heinz, Pillsbury and Hallmark amongst others. 

Madison Media group CEO Punitha Arumugam says, “I am delighted to have Karthik back with Madison Media. The best testament for Madison Media as an organisation is when ex Madisonites as talented as Karthik are willing to accept and explore career opportunities with us once again.”

Lakshminarayan added, “I am delighted to return to Madison Media, post my successful stint in the broadcast and production side of business, which I will leverage to deliver better value to Madison and its clients. I am looking forward to this new chapter in my career.”

Platinum Media CEO Basabdatta Chowdhuri added, “We have done a lot of interesting and exciting work for ITC in the last one year and I am looking forward to have Karthik lead our ITC AOR team.”

Madison Media Group handles media planning and buying for blue chip clients including Airtel, Godrej, Kraft, ITC, General Motors, Marico, McDonald’s TVS, Britannia, Procter & Gamble, Asian Paints, Tata Tea, Shriram Transport Finance, Levis, SpiceJet, Axis Bank, Domino’s, Bharti Axa, MaxNewyork Life Insurance, Tata Chemicals, Acer, Dish TV, IDFC, Imagine TV, Times Television Network, Indian Oil and many others.

The gross billing of Madison Media is Rs 30 billion.