Saugata Gupta takes charge of ISA as chairman

The newly-elected executive council of the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) met on September 11, 2014 and named Saugata Gupta, managing director and CEO, Marico as the new chairman of the ISA. He takes over from Hemant Bakshi who relocates to Unilever Indonesia as CEO.

For the record, the ISA is a national body giving a voice to advertisers over the last 60 years. It has advertiser members from across industries who contribute to over two-thirds of the country's national non-governmental ad spends. ISA, which is also a member of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), continues to partner with other industry bodies that connect to the advertisers such as initiating the formation of BARC.

Gupta says that the ISA's focus now will be on making industry partnerships stronger and to extend all support that is needed to help BARC come up with an industry-wide accepted and accurate TV Audience Research data representing viewers across the country. "I am looking forward to exciting times ahead for advertisers, industry partners and fraternity associations to work as a stronger team to harness overall growth of advertising which in turn will help grow businesses and the Indian economy," he says.

An MBA from IIM Bangalore, Gupta has rich FMCG experience of over two decades having worked through ascending career rung in Cadbury (India & UK), ICICI Prudential and Marico. He believes in an empowering work culture that would create ownership and make a difference in to the entire business ecosystem.

The other members of the executive council are:

• Atul Agrawal (vice president - Corporate Affairs, Group Corporate Communications, Tata Services)

• Abraham Alapatt (chief innovation officer and head - Marketing and Service Quality, Thomas Cook (India))

• Narendra Ambwani (director, Agro Tech Foods)

• Jimmy R. Anklesaria (director - Business Development, Bajaj Corp)

• J. C. Chopra (director, Infogain India)

• Paulomi Dhawan (strategic advisor, Raymond)

• Sonali Dhawan (brand director, P&G Hygiene and Health Care)

• Rajiv Dube (director, Group Corporate Services and Strategy, Aditya Birla Management Corporation)

• Sunil Kataria (COO - Sales, Marketing & SAARC, Godrej Consumer Products)

• Beena Leji Koshy (VP and head Advertising and brand development, Bajaj Electricals)

• Ajoy K. Misra (MD and CEO, Tata Global Beverages)

• Anisha Motwani (director and CMO, Max Life Insurance)

• Siddhartha Mukherjee (director - Chocolate Category and Media, Mondelez India Foods)

• Bharat V. Patel (independent director, Birla Sun Life Asset Management)

• Sanjiv Puri (divisional chief executive, ITC)

• Chandrasekar Radhakrishnan (head - Communications, Nestle India)

• R. Ramakrishnan (vice chairman, Joint MD and Group CEO, Polycab Wires)

• Samir Singh (ED, Personal Care Products, HUL)

• Brahm Vasudeva (chairman, Hawkins Cookers).