Six Indians on LIA 2017 jury

London International Awards (LIA), one of the most prestigious award shows, has announced its juries for 2017. India will be represented with six of the most celebrated creative professionals when the juries assemble in October in Las Vegas.

The outgoing chairman and chief creative officer, DDB Mudra, Sonal Dabral will represent India in the Branded Entertainment category. Dabral who will be re-joining Ogilvy India, earlier worked with Ogilvy from 1991 to 1999. He then took over as the creative head of Ogilvy Malaysia. Thereafter he took on the reins of creativity in Ogilvy Singapore as its leader, after which Ogilvy India wooed him back to India as the chairman India and regional creative director for Bates Asia-Pacific. He then took on the responsibility at DDB Mudra as chairman and chief creative officer.

Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, CCO at Cheil India, is the jury member from India in Digital category. With over two decades of experience across some of the best communication groups, he is one of the most recognised and awarded names in the business. He has been a part of Bates CHI & Partners in India and South East Asia, and has also held very senior positions at Rediffusion-Y&R and Ogilvy & Mather in the past.

Amit Akali, CCO at Medulla Communications and What’s Your Problem, has been appointed as the jury member in the Pharmaceuticals category. The former NCD of Grey launched a full-service digital agency called What's Your Problem (WYP), along with brother Praful, MTV's Huzefa Roowala and Wizcraft's Hammad Khan, two years back.

Sandipan Bhattacharyya, CCO at Grey Worldwide India, will judge the entries in Radio & Audio category. Bhattacharyya joined Grey Group from BBDO, where he spent close to eight years partnering Josy Paul in setting up the agency in India and shaping its creative reputation.

Govind Pandey, CEO at TBWAIndia, is representing India at LIA 2017 in ‘The New’ category. An advertising veteran with over 25 years in the industry, Pandey leads the agency's advertising business and operations across Mumbai and Delhi.

Rajdeepak Das, CCO, South Asia at Leo Burnett, is the jury from India in TV/Cinema/Online Film category. Based in Mumbai, he heads operations across the agency's India offices including Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai, as well as overseas offices in the region.

LIA is a global festival honouring creativity and new ideas in Advertising, Production, Digital, Design, Music and Sound, and Technology. The awards, founded in 1986 by president Barbara Levy, began by honouring advertising in the realms of cinema, television, print and radio worldwide, evolving since its inception into 19 unique media types. It was the first truly international advertising awards of its kind to acknowledge all media and methods from all over the world to be judged by a diverse global jury. Every member on each jury panel, including the jury president, judges all entries, excluding their own work, in their respective media. Each Jury has the discretion to award a Grand LIA within the media they are judging. The entry system is open for entries and the entry deadline is August 17.