Anita Nayyar to take over as executive director, Starcom, North

The news has been in the air for some days now. Anita Nayyar has been appointed executive director, Starcom, North, bringing to an end the search for Ravi Kiran's (managing director, Starcom West/South) counterpart in Delhi. Nayyar will operate out of Starcom's Delhi office and is expected to assume charge on March 3.

To put things in perspective, earlier this month Starcom India managing director Andrey Purushottam made public his resignation from the company and since then a couple of other strategic changes have taken place at the agency. Foremost was the segregation of the agency's operations into Starcom North and Starcom West/South. While Ravi Kiran was promoted to the post of managing director, Starcom West/South, search was on to look for his North counterpart. (Dr Ravi Moorthy went on to manage the South China office of Starcom around the same time.)

Nayyar's task looks clearly cut out. Talking about her role to agencyfaqs!, she says, "My mandate is to consolidate the existing business and explore more business opportunities offered by the Northern market to grow Starcom." She adds, "Being part of a leading, 20-billion-dollar global company, and heading Delhi, one of its key markets, will be a great challenge for me. Starcom stands for the very best in media investment management in terms of people, systems, knowledge and tools and it certainly makes me very proud to be part of this team."

Nayyar is a graduate in microbiology from Bombay University and has done her postgraduate in medical technology from BIMT, Mumbai. However, she found her true vocation in management and started a long innings in media planning and buying in 1983. In her 20 career in advertising, she has looked after brands in several large agencies including Ogilvy & Mather, Initiative Media/Lowe and Grey Worldwide/Mediacom. The last position she held was that of vice-president, media, at Mudra Communications. To her credit is winning and renewing the Maruti AOR (for Initiative Media), striking the first deal on STAR News Channel for Maruti and Initiative Media's World Cup deal in 1999, media innovations for LG, driving the Yamaha AOR and the Samsung CDMA businesses.

Nayyar is quite exited about her new responsibility. "I am starting off on a good foundation. From a small base, Starcom's Delhi business has grown 10 times in the last one year," she reiterates. Some of the recent businesses won by Starcom in Delhi include Dr. Morepen, LVMH Watches & Jewellery, Sony India and Benetton. © 2003 agencyfaqs!