Sign up for afaqs! Newsletters
MPG appoints Rakesh Malhotra as director, operations, Delhi
The Havas Group-controlled media agency has ambitious plans after bagging significant businesses like Mother Dairy and Kejian
MPG India, which is part of the Havas Group, has appointed Rakesh Malhotra as director, operations at the Delhi office. The move comes in the wake of the agency bagging significant businesses in the capital including the Rs 30-crore Mother Dairy account and the Rs 16-17-crore media business of Kejian, a Chinese mobile brand, a few months ago.
MPG India was given custody of LG Care (the FMCG wing of consumers electronics giant LG) in February this year, and with these wins, says V Ramani, CEO, MPG, South Asia, the agency is at no.2 spot in the capital. "Considering our portfolio of clients in Delhi, the need of the hour was to take the operations to a new level."
Prior to his appointment at MPG, Malhotra was the head of operations at GroupM-Team LG in Delhi.
With Malhotra's appointment, the senior management team at MPG is now in place, points out Ramani, with Anjan Roy as head of north, Anil George as head of south and Jeffery Crasto as national buying director with additional responsibilities.
Ramani himself, who has the dual responsibilities of heading Mediaturf (a sister concern, which is into providing online solutions to clients) and MPG, has been devoting more time on the latter, since the exit of Sandip Tarkas, president, MPG, South Asia in April this year.
Ramani maintains that there are no plans to fill the position vacated by Tarkas, who is now CEO of Media Direction, the media arm of RK Swamy/BBDO.
His vision for the agency is to have a string of accounts across the country, which provides the opportunity to nurture the client's business. "Well, that is the only way you can grow, when you help the client grow his business," he reasons.
In billing terms, the agency is under Rs 250-crore at this point, which Ramani is hopeful of crossing, once more accounts come its way.
His game plan includes acquiring another four accounts in the next two years to take the agency's billings to Rs 500-crore. "We are not in the business of servicing 80 or 90 clients," he says. "Our objective is to have about 18-20 good accounts, which give us an opportunity to nurture the clients' businesses. The approach we have taken is not narrow-focused and this should see us through comfortably." © 2004 agencyfaqs!