iContract revs up its senior management

iContract, the direct marketing arm of Contract Advertising, has roped in three senior executives in its Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi offices.

Sudarshan Banerjee, who has joined as associate vice-president and branch head in Mumbai, will play an instrumental part in taking the organisation to the next level. Consolidating the client portfolio will be an integral part of his mandate.

Prior to joining iContract, Banerjee worked as business director with MPG, Delhi. Other organisations he has worked with include Grey Worldwide, MediaCom, Zenith Media and Bates Enterprise (then Bates).

He is an MBA in marketing from IISWBM, Kolkata, and is a postgraduate diploma in mass communication from Jadavpur University, also in Kolkata. He has over 10 years of experience in servicing, strategic planning and media. Some of the clients he has worked for include ITC, BAT, P&G, Glaxo Smithkline, Coca-Cola, Emirates Airlines and Reckitt & Benckiser.

Banerjee says, “One to one marketing is the future of marketing operations today. With iContract’s calibre for a 360-degree communication approach with its customers, it will be a challenge to head a reputed and sturdy branch like the one in Mumbai.”

Among his memorable projects, Banerjee remembers working on Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish while he was with MPG, Delhi. Cherry Blossom was about to complete 100 years in 2006 and he was the one who initiated a message on an impulse on an aston band during a cricket telecast on Zee Sports, when Sachin Tendulkar was on the verge of completing his 35th century in one-day cricket. His 360-degree work on Mortein was among the Cannes 2006 nominations from India.

Heading the Bangalore office for iContract will be Parag Sen. As associate vice-president, Sen will play an active role in changing the general perception of iContract as merely a direct marketing domain. He will introduce cross-media innovative methods that will boost customer communication in terms of revenue standards.

Sen ran a marketing services company as an entrepreneur prior to joining iContract, Bangalore. He started his career with Contract Direct and then moved on to become a product manager with BPL Mobile. He subsequently joined ICICI Bank as head, Loyalty. He has good experience in the telecom and financial services businesses.

Meanwhile, Rahul Guha, who was earlier with Lowe Personal, Delhi, joined iContract a few months ago as vice-president and branch head, Delhi. He has 15 years of experience in direct marketing and has handled blue-chip clients such as Dell, Maruti Suzuki, SGI and BBC.

Commenting on the new appointments, S Swaminathan, executive vice-president, iContract, says, “Currently, iContract is looking at aggressive expansion and mounting its scale of operations in the market scenario. Roping in strong and talented officials at the senior levels is an overall effort on the part of iContract to strengthen its operations in the market and provide a holistic approach to customer marketing. All our professionals come in with high-class experience and 360-degree passion to bring an overall turnaround for our brands.”

For the record iContract is the one-to-one communication division of Contract Advertising, a member of the WPP network. It is a technology driven one-to-one customer life-cycle management company and, in addition to one-to-one consulting, it offers its clients solutions such as direct marketing, events and promotions, online marketing, database management and analytics and customer contacts.

Some of the prominent clients handled by iContract include HSBC, HSBC Mutual Funds, Shoppers’ Stop, Tata Indicom, Onida, VSNL, Bharti AXA and Visa.

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