Devina Joshi
Advertising

Post David-Bates merger, Subramaniam may move back to O&M

Shortly after the formation of Bates David Enterprise, Josy Paul quit his post as national chairman at David and joined JWT as its NCD

Two months after the merger of David with Bates Enterprise, David’s president Kumar Subramaniam might be looking at other avenues within the WPP Group.

As is known, when Bates David Enterprise was formed in February this year as a result of the merger, Josy Paul, David’s national chairman, had walked away from the agency he had nurtured since inception and joined JWT as its national creative director. However, it was largely undecided what roles would be assigned to the other three pioneers of David, Kumar Subramaniam, president; Manish Sinha, national planning head; and Praveen Vadhera, country head, Wall Street David.

While Vadhera will continue heading the Wall Street David unit nationally, Sinha will take on the role of vice-president, planning, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, for Bates David Enterprise. He will be based in Mumbai.

Post David-Bates merger, Subramaniam may move back to O&M
Kumar Subramaniam
Post David-Bates merger, Subramaniam may move back to O&M
Manish Sinha
As for Subramaniam, the rumour mill has it that he is likely to move out of the new setup, and return to WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather for his third stint there. However, Subramaniam may continue working at Bates David Enterprise for another month or so. While Paul may have quit because of conflicting views on agency culture and the setup, sources claim that Subramaniam is attracted to O&M because of the more interesting opportunities he sees there. However, no comments were forthcoming either from the man himself or from the Ogilvy executives.

Subramaniam started his career with a stint in journalism, first at the ‘Free Press Journal’ and then at ‘The Indian Express’. After that, he worked as an editor with Orient Longman. He began his advertising career at Leo Burnett, followed by Mudra, after which he joined O&M. After a five-year stint at O&M, he moved out briefly for 10 months to Radio City, before returning to advertising and O&M. Once back there, he spearheaded the formation of a division, the Auto Practice Group, as its vice-president. This division looked after all the automotive brands of the agency, such as CEAT Tyres, Bajaj Auto and Tata Motors. While there, he was also vice-president on the Heroes Project business.

Once Paul of David sold him on the idea of “thinking like the navy and acting like the pirates”, he joined David as its president in September 2005 and has been there ever since.

© 2007 agencyfaqs!

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com