Spatial Access Solutions ropes in Madison's Harsha Joshi as CEO

Joshi comes in from Madison Media where she was COO, media buying and content. At Spatial Access, she will be responsible for growing the international business vertical.

Harsha Joshi, COO, media buying and content, Madison Media, has moved on to join Spatial Access Solutions where she shall function in the capacity of CEO for the international business vertical. She shall work in tandem with Geetanjali Bhattacharjii, CEO for the non-media vertical (business development and marketing services) and Nikhil Rangnekar, who recently joined Spatial Access from Starcom as CEO for the media vertical. She shall report in to Meenakshi Madhvani, founder and managing partner, Spatial Access Solutions.

Spatial Access Solutions ropes in Madison's Harsha Joshi as CEO

On her appointment, Madhvani tells afaqs!, that it is part of a larger direction which the company is now taking. "Spatial Access Solutions has grown significantly over the last few years. This has led us to form three separate verticals, including the international business one which Harsha will spearhead," she says. "We have been growing our business significantly with associates in Europe in particular, and Harsha will look into that, with her rich media buying experience over the last 15 years."

Joshi, who has been with Madison Media for the last 11 years, comments on her move, "I learnt a lot at Madison, under Punitha Arumugam and Sam Balsara's leadership. However, after a total brush of 15 years with media buying, it was time to do something different. It was a difficult decision, but the opportunity at Spatial Access is tremendous - with media investment going up, people want more ROI and the significance of media audits in that case is only going to grow with time."

Joshi started her career in media planning 20 years ago, in Mudra's media department in 1991. She moved on to join media planning at Trikaya Grey (now Grey Worldwide), post which she switched to the media buying side in 1995 with HTA (now JWT). Following that, she was a founder member of Mindshare Fulcrum which took care of media buying for Hindustan Unilever. "It was a first in all ways: we were among the first AORs, among the first to have a buying arm and handling a brand such as HUL was a huge boost careerwise," recalls Joshi.

Post this, she joined the media division at Rediffusion - Y&R (which later spiralled into TME), where she worked for a year and a half handling Colgate. After a one year break in 1999, she returned to the media arena as a director, media buying, with Madison Media. She went on from capacity to capacity in the company, moving up from director, media buying, to vice-president and finally, COO, buying, for all the units.

For the record, Spatial Access also has significant plans to expand its business to other nations, a move that will be looked after by Joshi. "There are international clients who are looking at audits in their Indian verticals in a big way, and we hope to play a significant role there," Madhvani remarks.

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