Vineet Singh Hukmani quits Mudra; to join Cheil

Hukmani's appointment comes into effect in the first week of January 2005

Vineet Singh Hukmani, vice-president, Mudra Communications, has put in his papers. He will join Cheil Communications as head, national planning, in the first week of January 2005. The date is yet to be finalised. Confirming the development, Viren Razdan, vice-president, Cheil Communications, says, "Vineet would be setting up the planning department at Cheil."

Till now the agency did not have a fully operational planning department. The mandate for 2005 is to develop the non-Samsung business; a full-fledged planning department therefore is crucial. "Planning is an extremely important function at Cheil globally," explains Razdan. "Since the focus next year in India is business acquisition, having a database of tools and techniques is mandatory. At the moment, there are a few people in planning and Vineet would be recruiting more. He would be responsible for business development as well."

Business development is one of Hukmani's responsibilities. But the job that he is anxious to get started on is setting up the planning department. "I have been hungry for planning," remarks Hukmani.

While he was handling planning, among other things, at Mudra, it was not at a scale he had wished for. "I have always been a builder not a dweller. I certainly had a terrific time at Mudra. But the offer from Cheil was an opportunity to practise planning at a national level, bring fresh perspective."

What makes Hukmani particularly excited about planning is its critical role in brand strategy and creative output. "Though planning has been around for a very long time, its role has evolved from being a mere brand differentiator to a brand discriminator. Once there, a brand is beyond the reach of competition," he says.

Hukmani, who is currently serving his notice period, joined Mudra last December.

There he worked on Yamaha (Libero, Crux, Enticer and corporate), Reliance Energy and Infocomm, Samsung (corporate), Hamdard, Henkel and Rotomac.

Before Mudra, Hukmani was at Saatchi & Saatchi (Bangalore) as executive vice-president. There he's worked on TVS Victor, TVS Centra, besides the TVS corporate business, alongside Tata Tea and IFB appliances.

Hukmani, an electronics and communications engineering graduate, discovered his passion for advertising and marketing after five years of working as an engineer. Once he made up his mind, he headed straight to The Times School of Marketing, Delhi. Armed with a degree in business administration, he joined Grey Worldwide, Bangalore. Three years on, he moved to WorldSpace, and after a two-year stint there he joined BPL Innovision as chief operating officer. After which the Saatchi & Saatchi and Mudra stints followed.

Besides planning, Hukmani's is hooked on to music in a big way. Incidentally, Hukmani is the lead singer of pop group Balle Balle Boys, which has two hit numbers - My Name is Manjeet and Baabe Karade Ishq - to its credit. His third album is due for release in mid-January 2005.

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