Prabhakar Mundkur resigns as president of Everest

In a surprise development, Prabhakar Mundkur, president, Everest Integrated Communications, has decided to quit the agency. The move out of Everest comes exactly a year after Mundkur joined the WPP-Group agency, after a four-and-a-half year stint at Euro RSCG India. Confirming the news of his resignation, Mundkur told agencyfaqs!, "I took the decision of putting in my papers at Everest early this week, as I want to look at other opportunities, both within and outside advertising." While he does not reveal till when he will be with the agency ("That's still to be decided," he says), he adds that it won't be for "much longer".

Quizzed about the suddenness of the decision to leave Everest, Mundkur - who has spent a large part of his 26 years in advertising with JWT (both within India and overseas), working on brands such as Kellogg, Frito Lay and Pepsi, as well as Unilever accounts - says, "It's not sudden, but certainly short." While he chooses not to go into the particulars of what prompted the decision, Mundkur does reveal that he does not have any immediate offers in hand, and adds that there's "nothing specific" about the ‘opportunities' that he refers to. "I want to take a break and think a bit," he says, "And I want to do things that I really love." These, he reveals, include teaching, writing, and spending time doing voluntary work for Love Humanity, an NGO he has been associated with for the past six months.

"I have been invited to deliver some guest lectures at a Barcelona-based business school, IESE (of the University of Navarra), in end-April," he says. "Then, in May, I am going to Sri Lanka to conduct some advertising workshops. I also love writing, so I want to write on a variety of topics. Plus, I plan to devote more time to the NGO I am associated with. I have not been able to do much work for them because of the busy schedules I kept in advertising, but I hope to correct that."

All this, however, does not mean that the man and his talents are lost to Indian advertising. "All these are things that I shall be doing in the interim, while I sort out my priorities and expectations," he quickly assures. "Advertising is definitely not out of my system, and I will certainly get back to it… because I think I am good at it," he chuckles. "It's just that I want to take some time out for myself before I zero-in on something that I like and would want to be part of." He is not, however, prepared to set a timeframe for his return to the profession. "When I return is something that I can't predict at this stage, but I hope it will be soon."

With Mundkur moving out of the agency, the position of president of Everest has fallen vacant. While the agency's Managing Director Ram Sehgal is currently unreachable, we shall keep you updated on the situation that evolves at Everest. So stay tuned… © 2004 agencyfaqs!