Viveat Susan Pinto
Media

Mahuya Chaturvedi is new Labcentre head at Lodestar

Chaturvedi takes over from Arpita Menon, who now has a bigger role within the agency

Ex-Fulcrum hand Mahuya Chaturvedi is the new Labcentre head at Lodestar. The research wing functions as the agency's 'back-end' where proprietary tools and techniques, among other things, are devised.

In the wake of the appointment of president Shashi Sinha as the regional media director of FCB, Asia Pacific, the importance of the Labcentre has increased because it will now operate as the hub where tools and techniques for the region will be created.

"It will be a key resource for the organisation,” says Sinha. "And at the moment, Mahuya has a five-member team, which will increase over time.”

Chaturvedi has 10 years of media experience. She will report in to Arpita Menon, general manager, Lodestar. Menon along with Nandini Dias, vice-president, Lodestar are the two group heads within the agency, who report in to Sinha.

Dias handles the Interface (second agency of FCB-Ulka) businesses at Lodestar, while Menon is in charge of the FCB-Ulka portfolio. Independent businesses are divided equally between the two, informs Sinha.

In recent months, the agency has been strengthening its team to service its new businesses, and as reported on Wednesday on agencyfaqs!, Deepak Rajnetram comes in as media controller in Menon's team, taking responsibility of the Tata Motors, TCS and Tata Mutual Funds accounts. Menon's team will see another inductee in Sejal Shah, who will join as media director on January 17, 2005. One of her key accounts will be Trent, while Shivani Raina, a Lodestar-hand, is in charge of Tata Indicom.

Dias' team also has a new inductee in Ganesh Narayan, who is designated as media controller in charge of Nerolac and Nick. Some new businesses under the custody of Dias includes jewellery brand Orra, cell phone brand Kyocera and the entire Sapat group portfolio.

Dias also has the mandate of pushing the out-of-home, events, film entertainment and such other allied initiatives at the agency. Two new people – Prerna Pujara and Dhruv Jha – have been roped in to handle the out-to-home and events and film entertainment initiatives respectively.

© 2004 agencyfaqs!

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