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McCann-Erickson, Delhi, brings Sandip Mahapatra aboard to head planning

Mahapatra replaces Arvind Mohan, who has moved onto the Future Group's venture, Future Brands

McCann-Erickson has taken another step to revitalise its planning function – an exercise necessitated by a series of exits in this department.

Following the departure of the agency's president and COO, Santosh Desai, McCann's Mumbai planning head, Anirban Mukherjee, left to join Ambience Publicis. Subsequently, McCann's Delhi and Bangalore planning heads, Arvind Mohan and Ameen Haque, have reportedly moved to Future Group's division, Future Brands.

Sanjay Nayak, who recently joined McCann, took over from Desai. Now, TBWA's Sandip Mahapatra has joined McCann, Delhi, as V-P and head, planning, replacing Arvind Mohan. At TBWA, Mahapatra was executive director, strategic planning.

McCann-Erickson, Delhi, brings Sandip Mahapatra aboard to head planning
Sandip Mahapatra
An alumnus of Xavier's Calcutta and XLRI, Mahapatra has more than 18 years of work experience. Apart from advertising, he has also worked for Stencil shirts and a social organisation, CHIRAG.

Some of the brands that have benefited from Mahapatra's approach are J&J, Coca-Cola, Nestle, Unilever, Microsoft, General Motors, Perfetti, Nivea, Pedigree, Adidas, Allianz, Standard Chartered, National Geographic and Pril.

At TBWA Worldwide, Sandip was hand-picked by Jean-Marie Dru to work on global initiatives such as Bic, Playstation, Cadbury, Adidas, and Samsonite. He has also been McCann Worldgroup Indonesia's head, planning and consumer insights, and was instrumental in setting up and running a dedicated consumer insights team there. He has authored a chapter in 'Beyond Disruption', an Adweek book.

Interestingly, Mahapatra was one of the first generation of planners that came to McCann at the discipline's inception in 1996. He says, "This is a significantly different McCann from the one I used to know. It used to be about demonstrating potential energy; today that manifestation is in kinetic energy. The world will watch how fast and how far it can run."

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