Mid-Day’s Abhijit Pradhan to start his own venture

Abhijit Pradhan, director, sales and marketing, Mid-Day Multimedia Ltd, has decided to start his own venture. After working at Mid-Day for a year and a half, Pradhan has now quit to set up an ‘executive coaching’ company, a concept prevalent in the West, but fairly new to India.

Pradhan’s venture will coach leaders and potential leaders to drive their businesses. He says, “The various existing training programmes inspire only as long as the participants are in the seminar hall.” His venture will provide leaders with the training that will enable them to truly motivate their teams, he says. The company will be based initially in Mumbai, with the possibility of expanding its services to other cities in the future.

His association with his clients will not be limited to a few sessions; it will be a longterm mentoring process. He has been fostering the idea of such a venture for some time now. His experience at Mid-Day, among other things, made him realise the need for such training.

Pradhan has done his postgraduation in marketing management from the Times School of Marketing. He has more than 16 years of experience in advertising, media and marketing. He started his career at Contract and spent seven years there. After a stint with a marketing portfolio, he returned to advertising in the strategic planning division at Contract Mumbai. Four years later, he joined The Times of India (TOI) as head, magazine business, specifically Femina and Filmfare. From TOI, he moved to Mid-Day.

Pradhan’s responsibilities at Mid-Day will be taken up by Gaurish Pathare, national sales head, and Neville Bastawalla, marketing head. Pathare and Bastawalla were reporting to Pradhan and will now report to Manajit Ghoshal, who was recently promoted as chief executive officer.

Pathare joined Mid-Day as the national sales head in August 2007. Earlier, he was looking after print, radio and cinema buying for Reliance ADAG. Pathare has always been in the media buying and planning arena, working in companies such as Clea Advertising, Group M’s Fulcrum, MindShare and the TOI Group.

Bastawala joined Mid-Day as marketing head in July 2007. Earlier, he was senior manager, marketing, Nickelodeon. Bastawala has eight years’ experience in advertising and marketing and has worked at companies such as Advertising Avenues, Mudra, Contract Advertising and Disney.