Divya Gururaj to ensure smooth transition of MediaCom to GroupM

GroupM has brought in old hand Divya Gururaj as managing director of MediaCom, the latest addition to the GroupM stable of agencies.

In fact, since it was announced that Grey Worldwide’s media agency, Mediacom, would be placed under the GroupM umbrella along with the other WPP media agencies, the agency has seen a high attrition rate among its top management. Two of its topmost executives, Jasmeen Sohrabjee and Harish Shreyan, quit in September 2006. Satyajit Sen, vice-president at the Delhi branch, exited a few day before that.

GroupM now hopes to fill this gap at MediaCom, which has existed for the last three months.

Gururaj’s immediate task on joining in the first week of January 2007 will be to put the top management team in place. She will also have to ensure the smooth transition of MediaCom to the GroupM stable.

Gururaj has spent close to 10 years in GroupM. An IIM-Lucknow alumna, she started her career in 1992 in sales with Blow Plast. In 1994, she joined JWT (then HTA) as media planner and, in 1998, moved to MindShare Fulcrum (then Fulcrum). She then shifted to Mindshare in 2004 as business director and subsequently became the general manager there.

She remembers being part of the team that won a gold at the Emvies 2006 for IGO TV in the Best Media Strategy—Consumer Durables category.

Meanwhile, Tarun Nigam, another GroupM executive, has been named general manager and head of MediaCom, Delhi. Prior to this, Nigam was senior business director with Maxus on the Hero Honda account.

He has also worked with MindShare as an investment director on Gillette, Ranbaxy, for close to three years. Between 1994 and 1999, Nigam moved to the media owner’s side of the business when he handled UTV’s acquisition and sales operations.

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