Katha Mediatix appoints two key people to handle new business verticals

Katha Mediatix has made two significant appointments to strengthen its new business verticals. It has got on board Pabitra Roy as chief creative officer and Aniruddha Pal as executive vice-president, strategic alliance. Earlier, Roy was senior vice-president, creative, BEI Confluence, whereas Pal was business head, Planman Marcom.

Based in Mumbai, Roy will report to Krishnendu Sen, chairperson, Katha Mediatix; while Pal will report to Romeer Sen, director, Katha Mediatix.

He will head Katha's new diversification and will be in charge of developing the creative team. Roy will also look at adding new clients from all sectors and will focus on quality clients and niche communication.

Pal has joined Katha to develop its new verticals, which includes advertising, film production, digital, PR and BTL (below-the-line). Apart from the Planman Group, he has held key responsibilities since 2004, being involved with brands such as HDFC Standard Life, World Bank, Tata AIG, Anchor Group and 3 Global Services. Earlier, he has worked with Cobra PLC, a direct marketing company.

In his new role, Pal will be responsible for business acquisitions, joint ventures and alliances, talent sourcing and setting up new verticals and making them independent profit centres.

Katha Mediatix has fully branched out into a 360 degree marketing and communications setup, apart from the OOH vertical which has been its core business.

In November, the company forayed into new business verticals such as advertising, software content, digital and mobile marketing and media planning. Katha is already in the process of creating commercials and online campaigns for its recently acquired clients.

Katha is now aggressively looking at diversifying its business both pan-India and globally. It has planned a robust restructuring in manpower to achieve this target, getting in key people to drive each vertical and to give more value to its clientele.

In a period of a month and half, Katha has acquired about seven-eight clients for its new business verticals. Although the company declined to name the specific clients, it is learnt that the list includes brands in categories such as energy drinks, telecom, restaurants and handset manufacturers.

"We are expecting total revenue of Rs 150 crore in 2011 only from our OOH business; we expect an additional Rs 40-50 crore from the new business verticals in 2011," says Romeer Sen.

The company is also looking at adding more people. Currently, the team for new business consists of six people and it plans to take this to 20 by March, 2011.