Nalini Ravishankar joins MPG, Delhi as managing director

Nalini Ravishankar has joined MPG, Delhi as managing director. She has moved in from MPG New York, where she was senior vice-president. There she was in charge of the MCI business with billings estimated at half a billion dollars. Ravishankar has been with the MPG group for the last eight years.

She will be responsible for MPG’s Delhi operations, which contributes to about 75 per cent of the agency’s business in India.

Meanwhile, Jyoti Bansal and Ruby Bana will continue to head the agency’s Mumbai and South India operations, respectively. All three – Bansal, Bana and Ravishankar will report directly to Vishnu Mohan, CEO, MPG, Asia Pacific.

Ravishankar started her career with Young and Rubicam (Y&R) New York in early eighties, where she spent around 10 years. From Y&R, she moved to a management consultancy firm in the US as marketing director and it was mainly because she wanted to try her hand beyond advertising.

The reason that Ravishankar attributes to joining MPG India is both professional as well as personal. In fact, she is back in India after 20 long years.

Ravishankar feels that her experience in an advanced market such as New York, which is considered to be a mecca of advertising, will help the further growth of MPG in Delhi.

She says, “Firstly it had been long since I was away from India, which is why I all the more wanted to come back, and secondly India is an expanding market, and I think my knowledge and expertise will be crucial for the agency’s growth out here.”

In her career span, Ravishankar has worked on various brands in different categories. These range from MCI Telecommunications, MetLife Insurance, Johnson & Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser, The US Postal Service, Lufthansa, the Nasdaq stock exchange to name a few.

But one brand which is close to her heart is MetLife Insurance. It so happened that MetLife got into major controversy where it got much negative publicity especially among the elderly consumers. And as an Insurance brand is all about trust and faith, the need was to rebuild the same confidence among consumers.

Ravishankar laid a strategic media plan, where in they increased the duration of the TVCs from normal 30 secs to 60 secs. And instead of promoting the brand, they just provided health tips for elderly people. At the end, they just mentioned MetLife’s name. This helped the brand build a strong equity among the older generation and re-establish their confidence in the brand. And Ravishankar got loads of accolades for this strategy.

In her last assignment at MPG New York, she has played an active role in all new business development functions for the agency. Through the cultivation and creation of new client relationships and contribution to its pitching efforts, she helped lead MPG into new territory in the US market.

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