Sumita Vaid
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Enterprise Nexus is hunting for branch head, Delhi; Sundeep Kumar joins GPI

At Godfrey Philips India, Sundeep Kumar is director, corporate affairs

Sundeep Kumar, who was running the Delhi branch of Enterprise Nexus, as director, has recently joined Godfrey Philips India (GPI), as director, corporate affairs. The agency has not announced who will take over from Kumar. Talking to agencyfaqs!, Kumar says, "The agency has identified a person, but it will be some time before we announce it."

Sundeep Kumar put in roughly 10 years (including his stint at Nexus Equity) at Enterprise Nexus, Delhi, and a total of 23 years in the advertising industry. So he felt it was time to change, not just the job, but also the industry.

In particular, this last one year has seen many advertising professionals switching over to marketing or marketing-related functions. Virat Mehta of O&M joined Nestle India as corporate communications head; Nita Kapoor quit Mudra to join GPI as director, marketing; Rahul Kansal, who was heading Leo Burnett, Delhi, is now brand director, The Times Of India. More recently, Charles Berley Jenarius of Rediffusion, Delhi, joined Globacom of Nigeria as director, communication, and Kaushik Roy quit Mudra to join Reliance Infocomm as head of marketing.

For Kumar, however, corporate affairs, was a natural choice, against marketing. "I was quite clear that I would not hop across and join marketing. The marketing function is limiting in its scope, as the work is restricted to a certain product or a property. Corporate affairs has an interesting, eclectic mix. There are no boundaries, no compartmentalisation. In short, it is flexible."

Kumar began his stint in advertising with Rediffusion in 1980. Five years later, he co-founded Milestone (an accredited advertising agency with presence only in Delhi) with Sheila Sircar, who was Kumar's boss at Rediffusion. Some of the big-ticket clients Milestone handled included the Department of Tourism, India Today and Madhya Pradesh Tourism. However, fate had other plans for Milestone. In 1990, Sircar suffered a fatal cardiac arrest. "Till 1993, we just kept the agency going and then Milestone was merged with Nexus Equity (which became Enterprise Nexus in 1997," he informs.

As of now, Kumar is totally engrossed in his new role at GPI. ""I am still learning," quips Kumar, who has just completed a week at his new workplace. © 2003 agencyfaqs!

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