Kaushik Roy to join Mudra, Mumbai

Veteran advertising professional Kaushik Roy is slated to join Mudra Communications as executive director at its Mumbai office on

March 5

The search is over.

Mudra Communications has finally found a head for its Mumbai office, ending a four-month search after Rahul Kansal left the agency to join Leo Burnett as deputy managing director. Kaushik Roy will assume office from March 5 as executive director. Roy confirmed the development but refused to say anything more about his new assignment. He said, "I can speak to you only after Mr Krishnamurthy (A G Krishnamurthy, CMD) formally introduces me to the Mumbai office tomorrow (February 22)."

In a sense, this would be homecoming for Roy, who had spent close to five years at Mudra during an earlier stint between 1993 and 1998. Thereafter, Roy, who started his career as a trainee visualiser at HTA's Kolkata office, held various positions at Philips, Equus and Modi Entertainment Network, before retracing his way back to the Shriram Mills premises at Worli, Mumbai.

As it emerged, this appointment is part of the bigger restructuring programme that was kicked off at Mudra a couple of months back. Talking to agencyfaqs! Alan D'Souza, executive director, corporate, said, "We have chalked out the broad strategic direction that the agency is going to take. The specifics, like the kind of clients and people we would take on board, will follow from that broad direction."

As a matter of record, D'Souza himself was inducted to the board of Mudra along with Probir Purkayastha in December 2000. Purkayastha, who was earlier the head of Interact Vision, Mudra's second agency, joined the board as executive director, operations. Currently, he oversees Mudra's Delhi and south India operations. Both D'Souza and Purkayastha are Mudra veterans, having put in 13 years and nine years respectively.

Elaborating on the restructuring plan, D'Souza said, "The new dynamic initiatives at Mudra are aimed at two things. One, strengthening the agency from inside. Two, developing a competitive edge for the future. The idea is to ensure that we are able to correctly anticipate the future and be strong enough to withstand the emerging challenges."

As it turns out, this aggressive stance has helped the agency pick up some big-ticket clients over the past few months. Recounting the recent gains, Samit Sinha, executive vice-president, Mudra, Delhi, said that in the last two months Mudra's Delhi office has picked up Samsung and National Geographic, the Ahmedabad office has bagged Paras Pharma, Kolkata has roped in Tata Metaliks, Hotel Hindustan and Orient Fans and Bangalore has got TI Cycles and Monsterindia.com. "If one were to club these, the new businesses will net the agency annual billings of Rs 70 crore," he said.