Rajiv Shukla, country head of G3 Communications, quits

Rajiv Shukla, country head and associate vice president of Delhi-based G3 Communications, the second agency of Grey India, has put in his papers. Shukla confirmed the development to agencyfaqs!

Shukla is currently serving his notice period and will soon be leaving the company. But the exact time of his departure couldn't be ascertained.

Shukla, who has 16 years of experience in advertising, has been associated with agencies such as HTA (now JWT), Mudra, FCB ULKA, Grey and G3. He says, he will now start his own company providing brand consultancy and communication services to some renowned companies.

After working for HTA for 3 years, he moved to Mudra, where he spent one-and-a -half years. At FCB Ulka, he worked for about seven years before he moved to join Grey, Bangalore in May 2003. In December 2003, he became the country head of G3 - mainly servicing the client, Haier India, which incidentally accounts for a major chunk of G3's business.

In his advertising career, he has also worked on different accounts like Nestle, Citibank, ITC Welcom group, Hewlett Packard, LML scooters, Frito Lay, Usha International and Britannia dairy products.

This is not the first time when the entrepreneur bug has hit Shukla. In the early '90s, he had floated his own INS accredited agency by the name of Modus in Delhi He ran this agency for 3 years before joining Mudra.

When asked about the reason behind quitting G3, Shukla said, "I have been working for advertising agencies and was tired of conventional agency solutions and its structures and hierarchies. I wanted to do something different where I could handle a few clients and give lot more services to them, unlike advertising agencies where one has to handle many clients together."

On being quizzed on the fact whether it was a pre-planned decision, Shukla said that he had this idea has been in the back of his mind. But as certain opportunities emerged suddenly, he just availed of them. A few reputed companies have already contacted Shukla but he declined to divulge any further information.

Shukla rebuffed rumours about all's not well with G3. The company, he said, has actually expanded servicing Haier and a couple of other small accounts. Recently, the company has set-up a new office at Chennai.

When contacted, Nirvik Singh, chairman, South Asia, Grey Global Group, said, "I'm not aware of any such development." © 2004 agencyfaqs!