Lodestar strengthens team on Tata Indicom

Media agency Lodestar is in a beef-up mode once again. The agency has hired GroupM’s Parag Mhatre as media controller in charge of Tata Indicom.

Mhatre, an alumnus of the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai, with seven years of media experience, joins the agency’s Mumbai office today. He replaces Shivani Raina Ghosh, who quit Lodestar over a month ago to join international TV production company FBC Media.

Apart from Mhatre, who takes charge of both planning & buying, the agency has been beefing up the Indicom team; adding people across levels. “We’ve added people in operations, planning and buying,” informs Sejal Shah, media director, Lodestar, who Mhatre will report into.

Across the country, Lodestar has about 100-odd people in six offices including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Cochin and Bangalore. Mumbai alone has some 45-50 people making it the biggest office for the agency.

In recent months, the agency has strengthened its team with the induction of senior hands such as Mahuya Chaturvedi of Fulcrum, who came on board as the Labcentre head of Lodestar. Deepak Rajnetram, Sejal Shah and Ganesh Narayan were some of the other inductees, who were put in charge of some crucial businesses at the agency. These included Tata Motors, TCS and Tata Mutual Funds for Rajnetram, Tata Indicom for Shah and Nick and Nerolac Paints for Narayan.

Rajnetram and Shah, incidentally, report in to Arpita Menon, general manager, Lodestar, while Narayan’s immediate boss is Nandini Dias, vice-president, Lodestar.

Both Menon and Dias are group heads within the agency reporting in to Shashi Sinha, president, Lodestar and regional media director, FCB, Asia Pacific.

Menon, for the record, is in charge of the FCB-Ulka portfolio of accounts, while Dias looks after the Interface (second agency of FCB-Ulka) businesses at Lodestar. Independent businesses are distributed equally between the two. © 2005 agencyfaqs!