Joy Mohanty and Manas Nanda quit Enterprise Nexus; move to Everest

The vision of Everest Integrated Communications is to turn out "exceptional creative product backed by sound strategy," says Amitabha Lahiri, vice-president, Everest. While the Mumbai office saw some new faces in the creative team last year, the Delhi branch of Everest had not been much in the news in the second half of the year 2003, except for an occasional account win. That is because the Delhi office was concentrating on consolidation. And beefing up the creative team was one key area of focus. To that end, the agency has hired Joy Mohanty and Manas Nanda, earlier creative directors at Enterprise Nexus. The creative duo is slated to join Everest mid January as creative directors, Everest, Delhi branch.

The immediate task for Mohanty and Nanda is to strengthen the creative team and eventually produce some ‘sparkling' creative work. Here Lahiri takes a moment to distinguish the kind of creative product that Everest wants to associate with. "We are not here to produce fancy looking creative and sacrifice strategic inputs in the process. When there is overemphasis on creative, the business motive of the clients suffers. So what is the value the agency is giving to the client?" Lahiri asks.

The combined experience of Mohanty and Nanda, who first met at Leo Burnett, would surely be put to test at Everest. Nanda embraced advertising a year after Mohanty did. After a short stint at Lowe (then Lintas), Delhi, Nanda moved to O&M, Mumbai. He was back in Delhi after four years and joined Leo Burnett immediately thereafter.

It was at Leo Burnett that the two teamed up post the departure of the agency's creative head at Delhi. "When we started working together we realised that we made a good team. Therefore when we moved to Enterprise Nexus, we moved as a team," says Nanda. At Enterprise Nexus, Mohanty and Nanda initially worked on the non-General Motors business, which included Radico and LML, before adding GM to their portfolio.

On his part, Lahiri is waiting for the two to take the baton and run. "Their work is phenomenal, especially the work on Dabur, Iodex and Dainik Jagran. They have a couple of awards to their credit too," adds Lahiri. Mohanty and Nanda won a nomination at the One Show Awards for their work on Dabur Back-Aid and a British Design & Art Direction (both in 2002) nomination for Dabur's Capisco sauce.

With the new team in charge of the creative product, Lahiri has set himself a very clear agenda for 2004 - to aggressively pick up new business while ensuring organic growth. "We have done some great work on Parle and Apollo Tyres and will continue to do so." The ultimate objective, underlines Lahiri, is to "make Everest an agency that stands apart" from the rest. © 2004 agencyfaqs!