Profile - Malvika Mehra and Amit Akali: "We're Here to Stay"

Mehra and Akali have vastly different styles of working, but that's precisely what makes the new NCDs at Grey Worldwide tick as a team

It has been two months, while copywriters at Grey are still trying to figure out what to make of their new national creative directors, Malvika Mehra and Amit Akali.

One moment, there would be raised voices in the cabin and in the next the two would emerge as if nothing had happened. But, according to the duo, it is their vastly differing styles that make them click.

For Malvika - or 'Malu' as she is popularly called - deciding to join Grey wasn't half as tough as deciding to leave Ogilvy India, where she spent all the 16 years of her career.

Malvika joined the agency in Mumbai, fresh out of college (in 1994) as a trainee visualiser under Sonal Dabral. Over the years, she formed several meaningful partnerships with Dabral, Piyush Pandey, Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Manoj Shetty and V Sunil, the last named being the person whom she "learnt the best art from."

Sixteen years in a first job must be quite something. Was there a reason? "At Ogilvy, people tend to stick around as it allows you to reinvent yourself. I was lucky enough to get some fantastic opportunities, explore new cities, new teams and new accounts. I also learnt to push myself every time," shrugs Malvika, who admits to being a bit of a 'late bloomer' in the business. She did some of her most significant work post a stint at Ogilvy Delhi, 2001 onwards.

Akali, on the other hand, has been a bit of a drifter, starting off with journalism while at college. He helped create In-Touch, a youth supplement for the Afternoon Despatch & Courier. He also created promotional ads for the supplement, which brought on suggestions from friends to take up advertising as a career.

A successful copy test at Percept/H in 1995 and Akali had his foot in the door. "I was clear after B.Com that I didn't want to study further or get into my dad's export business!" he laughs. "I was fond of writing which ultimately led me to advertising."

Following Percept came spells in Saatchi & Saatchi, Speer (part of Ogilvy) and Enterprise Nexus (now Bates 141) for Akali - all of them roughly 15-month stints each. Then, the "Sindhi in him" arose and the need to make more money propelled him to float his own agency with a partner at the age of 24. Calling it Slightly Off Centre, he also worked for Mukul Upadhyaya's Touchstone Advertising, sharing the same office set up for his own venture as well.

These experiences exposed Akali to all the disciplines of advertising, but he realised that creative was his calling. He returned to Enterprise Nexus, following which, in 2004, Abhijit Avasthi (Kinu) hired him at Ogilvy, where he was thrown into partnership with Malvika.

While sizing each other up in their first meeting, Malvika realised here was a guy who 'talks nineteen to the dozen'. "He flits from topic to topic and puts his fingers in many pies. I'm about analysis and detailing. He's width. I'm depth." When Malvika gets in too deep on something, Akali pulls her out, while Malvika in turn picks his brains on which ideas are too wild and which are feasible.

Akali adds another perspective: the uncanny wavelength that is so similar. For instance, Akali will have exactly the same problem with 'that yellow border' in a layout as Malvika.

'Surprisingly SBI' was among the duo's first campaigns together, which paved the way for other high-decibel campaigns like Bingo (No confusion, great combination), Lenovo and Hutch Rangashankara Festival. These were created when they were sent to Ogilvy Bengaluru, to handle a fledging office there after the sad demise of V Mahesh, while his art partner, Rajiv Rao, was shifted to Mumbai.

"Ogilvy Bengaluru was a growing-up process for us," says Malvika. From handling a team of eight in Mumbai, the two were tasked with a team of 50 in Bengaluru. "It was a transition - from throwing tantrums to managing people," she laughs. "But it also gave us scale and independence. Piyush simply gave us Bengaluru as a playground. He had more faith in us than we had in ourselves."

Rao's and Mahesh's were big shoes to fill, and the turning point for Akali and Malvika arrived with the Rangashankara campaign, which, to their surprise went on to fetch the Campaign of the Year award at the Abby's. It was a remarkable feat of arms for a Bengaluru team back then. Bingo which followed, led them to create a new language altogether.

The opportunity to work at Grey wasn't planned. "When Tim Mellors (Grey's global creative chief) came to India, he expressed an interest in us and we met him with a nothing-to-lose mindset," recalls Akali.

Mellors was frank about the agency's shortcomings and the top-level creative churn it had been undergoing over the last few years. He spent some time telling the duo how getting too comfortable in one place wasn't such a good idea.

"In my case, particularly, Tim reminded me that I'm 38 and if I don't move out now, I never will," says Malvika. "For me, it was a big move, as Ogilvy was family. But I am surprised at how quickly we have adapted and completely entrenched ourselves at Grey."

Akali and Malvika have spent time so far understanding the existing team at Grey. "The culture of this place needs to change and the creative product needs to speak," says Akali. "We know the extent of the challenge before us, but we're in for the long haul. And we're here to stay."