Obituary: Puneet Sabharwal, ex-adman and placement consultant (1963-2008)

Sabharwal started his career in client servicing in Saatchi & Saatchi (then Sistas). He later started his own placement service, called Advantage Placement Services

“If people are the most valuable asset in the advertising industry, he played a key role in guiding and nurturing them,” says Bela Vora, a very close friend and founder, Black Coffee Advertising Bangalore, about Puneet Sabharwal, who passed away recently.

Puneet Sabharwal was an ex-advertising professional and placement consultant. He used to run a placement consultancy called Advantage Placement Services in Bangalore.

Sabharwal was born in Chennai in 1963. He spent his initial 10 years in Chennai and later moved to Bangalore. He worked for a BCom at MES College and a diploma in business management at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Bangalore.

Vora continues on Sabharwal, “I met Puneet 17 years ago, first over the phone, during my tenure with JWT Bangalore (then HTA). Puneet worked hard to find the right people for our business. He took the time to counsel promising youngsters and grew to the stature of being the person to contact if one needed to recruit at any level. He was confident of his strengths. I feel sorry for the entire industry, which is so very dependent on people, that it has lost an honest and effective stalwart like Puneet.”

Sabharwal started his advertising career in client servicing with Saatchi & Saatchi (then Sistas). He worked with the agency for close to four years and then started his own placement service for the advertising industry in 1991. At the time, he was also in the business of making and designing 35 mm projector slides. Later, when projector slides lost their popularity, he began concentrating on placements only.

He leaves behind his wife and two teenage sons. Sabharwal’s wife, Kaaveri Sabharwal, says he was a compatible life partner. She says he was not only a good human being, but also a very good father. She talks fondly of his keen interest in dogs and his passion for golf.

Another close friend, S Ghosh, president and chief executive officer, Celsius 100 Consulting (a marketing consultancy firm and part of the Saatchi & Saatchi network), says, “Puneet was a dear friend of mine and part of Saatchi & Saatchi in the late 1980s. He had a keen entrepreneurial instinct and was completely committed to the industry. He was a thorough professional – honest and dependable to the last. He understood well the importance of good professionals in the advertising industry and worked hard to get them. He was loved by all. The whole industry will miss him.”

Malavika Harita, branch head, Saatchi & Saatchi Direct, who has known both Puneet and Kaaveri Sabharwal for more than a decade, says, “Puneet and Kaaveri were a lovely couple. I feel really sad for Kaaveri. Puneet was a very trustworthy human being who never betrayed anyone’s confidence. The best thing about him was that he was very honest. He could be blunt at times. He was a fantastic professional and very discreet in his work. The industry will definitely feel his loss.”