AAAI re-elects its executive committee

Madhukar Kamath, managing director and chief executive officer, Mudra Communications Pvt. Ltd, has been re-elected for a second term as president of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI). The executive committee for 2008-09 was elected at the annual general body meeting of the AAAI on July 22 in Mumbai.

Colvyn Harris, chief executive officer, JWT, was unanimously re-elected vice-president of the AAAI.

In 2007, Kamath took over as AAAI president from Srinivasan K Swamy, chairperson and managing director, RKSwamy/ BBDO. Swamy was president of the AAAI from 2004 to 2007. He will now be an ex-officio member of the new AAAI executive committee.

Interestingly, Jagdip Bakshi, who has recently taken over as global business director on Unilever at JWT, also figures on the list of members. Bakshi, in his new assignment, is now based in London.

Sam Balsara of Madison Communications was a member of the 2007-08 committee and has been re-elected this year. He was president of the AAAI from 2002 to 2004.

Other members to be re-elected to the 2008-09 committee are MG Parameswaran of DraftFCB Ulka, Nagesh Alai of Interface Communications, Neville Gomes of Multimedia Aquarius, Pranav Premnarayen of Prem Associates Advertising & Marketing, Rajeev Ruia of Overture Communications, Sudhir P Ghate of Magnum Intergrafiks, Suman Srivastava of Euro RSCG, Surajit Nag of Advertising & Sales Promotion Co., Tapas Gupta of BEI Confluence, and Vinod Nair of Network Advertising.

The AAAI is the apex body of advertising agencies in the country. It comprises 88 members, who together account for around 90 per cent of all the advertising business in the country.