Sandeep Vij appointed chief knowledge officer at Mudra

Sandeep Vij, executive director, Mudra Group, has taken on an additional role – that of chief knowledge officer at the Mudra Group. His new responsibility includes looking after the Knowledge Management Initiative, an initiative by the group to process the huge pile of information into knowledge that is useful across all Mudra specialist practices.

This initiative is aimed at ensuring future competitiveness, an upgraded skill set, greater productivity and better bottom lines.

The Knowledge Management Initiative will create actionable knowledge across about 100 categories, consumer groups, insight and trends, creative, interactive and rural media.

“The whole idea,” says Vij, “is to put forth the data (knowledge) in an easily accessible format for our team.” The data will be relevant across various Mudra verticals, including rural marketing, interactive, digital and OOH. The data is for internal use only.

The knowledge bank is expected to be up and running in three to four months, with a focus on creating a wealth of information for Mudra’s creative and media verticals in Phase 1. A team of 20-25 people, including existing planners from Mudra, will be in charge of managing this function, with a head in each region where Mudra has an office.

The key mandate of the team will be to deliver the thought leadership agenda, support new business development and strategic planning, ensure key client engagement at the strategic level and document and archive contributions to clients and their brands.

For the record, Vij started his advertising career in 1984 with Bates 141 (then Clarion). In 1988, he joined Mudra Delhi as manager, strategy planning and development. He has worked on a number of brands in India for prominent companies, including Nestlé, Mobil, McDonald’s, Dabur, Frito Lays, Samsung, HM and Reckitt Benckiser.

In 1991, Vij started Mudra Diversified – Direct Response and set up branches in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. In 1994, he was brought back to mainline advertising at Mudra Delhi and subsequently became head of the agency’s Delhi operations. In 2000, he took a brief break from advertising to pursue an entrepreneurial dream – he cofounded afaqs.com (earlier agencyfaqs.com).

In 2002, Vij joined the Mudra Group once again to look after Optimum Media Solutions as its president, after which he assumed his current role as executive director, Mudra Group.