Meera Sharath Chandra moves to RMG as president, NCD

Sharath Chandra moves from Mudra Marketing Services after a two year tenure as national creative director across the non-traditional media business units

RMG Connect, JWT’s direct marketing, customer relationship management and digital solutions company, has announced the appointment of Meera Sharath Chandra as president and national creative director. Sharath Chandra takes the reins at RMG Connect India on January 25.

Sharath Chandra moves from Mudra Marketing Services after a two-year tenure there as national creative director across the non-traditional media business units Tribal DDB India (interactive and new media) and Rapp Collins India (direct response and CRM).

Starting her career 25 years ago with Maa Bozell, Sharath Chandra moved as senior copywriter to Everest. After spending three years there, she moved to JWT as creative supervisor and grew to be a senior director and vice-president. Eleven and a half years later, in 1999, she moved from JWT to start her own dotcom company in the US, called Avigna Technologies. In 2003, she shut shop in the US and moved back to India as vice-president and branch manager at Contract Chennai. Later, Sharath Chandra moved to Contract’s Mumbai office as vice-president and head of team HSBC. After her stint with Contract, she joined Mudra Marketing Services as national creative director and she was there till now.

Meera Sharath Chandra

Sharath Chandra is one of the very few creative heads who has hands-on experience in the digital world and who believes in utilising technology for more personalised communication. Elaborating on her beliefs, she says, “Who says the bull’s eye should be at the centre of the circle? The bull’s eye is now wherever the customer is. It is a moving target. If we do not recognise that, we are losing sight of the consumer and spraying bullets blindly. That’s where marketing services, and particularly a digital offering, direct marketing and CRM have a key role to play. I want to leverage those assets within RMG to take our client’s marketing to the next level.”

Sharath Chandra has a successful track record with clients such as HSBC, Cadbury, Citibank, Ford, Walt Disney, Pepsi, Nestle and Platinum Guild. She has won awards in a wide range of international competitions from Cannes to the Webbys.

Making the announcement, JWT CEO Colvyn Harris says, “We do believe that as someone fluent in the Thompson way, who went on to gain a set of New Age skills and international experience in the emerging marketing communication space, Meera is exactly what we need. We have big and ambitious plans for RMG Connect India and we will offer the best solutions to our clients in customer engagement.”

According to JWT Worldwide president Michael Maedel, “Meera is a very valuable addition to the RMG Team in India. JWT’s vision is to provide the best skills and capabilities for our clients and the brands we steward. Meera’s expertise, coupled with our vision to lead the digital and CRM space in India, will ensure that our primary objective to build a world class offering is fulfilled. I am confident she is the kind of talent we need to ensure future relevance.”

The president of RMG Connect for the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), Paul Davies, says, “We have a huge vision for India and Asia. We believe we are ideally poised to help our clients with best in class solutions, enabling the most efficient and effective customer engagement possible. We are global. We are local. And we can leverage our capabilities from across the world for our clients. Meera is a valuable addition to our team.”

RMG Connect is a relationship marketing agency, which offers services across direct marketing, CRM and digital media. RMG has been in business for more than 15 years with three full service offices across India. The agency has a staff strength of more than 120 and a host of clients across sectors, including the financial, insurance, retail and telecom sectors. During the last 15 years, the agency has handled more than 300 programmes.

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com