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Dentsu Marcom appoints Rajat Sethi as MD

Sethi joins in from Reader's Digest, where he headed the country operations for India

Dentsu India has appointed Rajat Sethi as managing director, Dentsu Marcom. Prior to this, Rajesh Aggarwal, president, Dentsu India was overseeing the operations of the agency vertical. Sethi will work closely with Aggarwal to lead business and operations at Dentsu Marcom.

Prior to Dentsu, Sethi headed the country operations in India for Reader's Digest International.

On Sethi's appointment, Aggarwal says, "Rajat is a veteran in the Indian communications and media scape and it's great to have him on board Team Dentsu in India. His diverse experience across disciplines of communications is of tremendous value. We see him lead Dentsu Marcom to great heights."

Dentsu Marcom appoints Rajat Sethi as MD
A practicing marketing communications professional, Sethi has helped build operations in the Indian sub-continent for large global marketing communication companies such as Wunderman and McCann Relationship Marketing. He has also worked with Lintas and as vice-president of McCann Erickson, where he was conferred the HK McCann Leadership Award.

Speaking on his new assignment, Sethi says, "I am delighted to join the Dentsu team in India. I believe Dentsu in India combines the best of entrepreneurial spirit with global expertise, both of which are critical in managing today's communication needs. I am looking forward to growing the Dentsu Marcom business in India and contributing to our clients' success."

For him, he maintains, it is a sort of second homecoming to the advertising world.

Sethi, who has put in almost three decades in marketing, advertising and in the specialised area of relationship marketing, started his career in marketing as a management trainee with Jenson & Nicholson in 1979 and plunged into advertising in 1983, when he joined Lowe (then Lintas) to handle HLL's businesses. He moved to Clarion (now Bates) in 1988 and to McCann Erickson in 1990.

Sethi was president of Result: McCann, a direct marketing agency set up by him in 1995. He later became the sub-regional director for Asia-Pacific, McCann Relationship Marketing. At McCann, he was instrumental in developing one of the region's prominent loyalty programmes for Hero Honda Motorcycles. He spent 12 years with McCann Erickson.

In 2003, he joined Wunderman, the world's leading direct marketing agency, as CEO of the Indian operations.

He has also received the 'Agency Head of the Year' Award for Asia-Pacific conferred by Media magazine. In recognition of his contribution in the field of integrated communications, Sethi was invited as a Lions Jury member to the 50th Cannes Advertising Festival.

Sethi is a graduate in Economics and a postgraduate in Management Studies. He also completed the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School in 2005. Sethi is also a guest speaker at several management and communications institutes in India. Recently, he was invited as a speaker at the 2009 India Business Conference held in Harvard Business School, Boston.

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