Lowe's Pavan Varshnei set to join India Today Group as Publishing Director

Pavan Varshnei, executive vice-president and Head of Insight Media, has called it a day after a decade-long innings with Lowe.

While Varshnei was not available for comment, agencyfaqs! has learnt from reliable sources that Varshnei, currently serving his notice period, is on his way to the India Today Group as Publishing Director, responsible for Business Today, Time, Fortune and Golf Digest.

The person to take over from him will be Raj Gupta, a former director with Lowe. Insight is the third media arm of the Lintas Group.

Insight was set up earlier this year to handle the AOR business of Bajaj Auto, Idea Cellular, UTI, Pantaloon and Parley Agro among others. The company had a shaky start with the sudden exit of S Yesudas, executive vice-president and number two to Varshnei.

Over the past few months, Insight Media had stabilised under Varshnei, and had recently added the Maruti Digital business.

Varshnei, a management graduate from the Asian Institute of Management and a Chevening scholar from the London School of Economics has been with Lowe since 1994 and was one of the key managers responsible for the Delhi unit's fast paced growth. Among the accounts he won and managed were Maruti Suzuki, Joyco Confectionery (now part of the Wrigley's group), Cisco, Ericsson & Sony Ericsson.

Interestingly, in February 2004, when Ashish Bagga became the publishing director of the India Today Megabrand, the group had also announced the appointment of Satish Menon, who is currently president, Sahara TV group, as the publishing director and head of the Business Group. Menon was slated to join the India Today group in March. But that, as is clear from this development, did not happen.

To find out why, calls were made to Bagga and Menon. Both were unavailable for comments. © 2004 agencyfaqs!