Ad Club Madras re-elects R Seshadri as president

R Seshadri, managing director, Anugrah Madison, has been re-elected president of Ad Club Madras for 2009-10.He has held several positions in the club over the years, including that of secretary before he was elected the 37th president of the club last year.

A commerce graduate from the University of Bombay, Seshadri started his career in advertising in 1979 as a trainee account executive in Clarion Advertising Services, Mumbai. Later, he moved to Ulka Advertising and after a nine year stint in advertising in Mumbai, he moved to Chennai in 1988 as client service director, Anugrah Madison (a part of Madison World that functions as the Rural Communication Division of Madison).

He has handled a diverse portfolio of brands including Geoffrey Manners, Agfa, Vazir Sultan Tobacco, Godrej, Voltas and Singapore Airlines.

His association with the Ad Club started when he moved to Chennai in 1988. To begin with, he was associated with the club as a faculty in its part time course on Advertising Management, held jointly with MMA (Madras Management Association) at that time. Later, he continued to be associated with the club's part time Diploma Course in Advertising (PGDA), launched in 1994, as a guest faculty.

In 2001-02, he became an executive committee (EC) member of the Ad Club and has been a part of it ever since, holding various positions such as convenor in charge of workshops and seminars, sports, quiz, the club's e-magazine, secretary for a period of two years, and then, vice-president. He was elected the president in 2008-09.

Speaking about the way forward for the Ad Club, Seshadri says, “Ever since I took over the leadership of the club last year, we have launched some new initiatives. The Tamizh Advertising Awards launched last year to recognise and award original work in Tamil was a thumping success with participants from most of the large and established agencies.

“As a part of some fresh initiatives in the coming year, the executive committee of the club proposes to launch some activities in the area of 'knowledge enhancement' through periodic workshops on subjects of interest to its members.”

He informs that the club also launched its website last year. He adds that proposals have been passed to revamp the PGDA course to make it more contemporary and to add some short term courses in the area of education to youngsters who would like to take up a career in advertising.

Several other office bearers and executive committee members have also been elected. They include P Subramanian (from O&M), vice-president; N Baaghyalaksmi (from Out of Home Media), secretary; S Sadhasivan (from Layam Advertising), treasurer; and Karthic Moorthy (from Elegant Publicities), joint secretary; and members of the executive committee including Ninan Thariyan (from TOI), LV Navneeth (from Radio One), Seshadri Iyer (from TV18), KR Skandraaj (from Sovereign Media Marketing), Vijay Jacob Parakkal (from Bates India) and J Janardhanan (from Rediffusion Y&R).

V Kalidas (from The Hindu) and Jagannath Ramaswamy (from Crystal), both ex-presidents, have also been nominated to the executive committee.