Prashant Pandey calls it a day at JWT, moves to GSK

Pandey has spent 12 years at JWT and worked on the GSK business from the agency’s side, which will help him in his new assignment

Prashant Pandey has quit as vice-president, JWT, to join Glaxo SmithKline Consumer Healthcare (GSKCH) as general manger, marketing. At GSKCH, he will oversee the Horlicks brand and its extensions, including Junior Horlicks, Horlicks Lite and Women’s Horlicks. Pandey will report to Shubhajit Sen, executive vice-president, marketing, GSK.

While at JWT, Pandey has worked on Horlicks specifically as well as all of GSK. He says, “I feel privileged to have the opportunity to take on this role at GSKCH. Horlicks is one of the biggest and most exciting brands in India and I look forward to contributing to its future success.”

Prashant Pandey

Pandey began his career in advertising in 1995 – his first assignment was with Mudra Communications. Less than a year later, he moved to JWT and was there till now. His 12 years at JWT, he says, have been wonderful. He started out at JWT in the account management function, looking after Motorola pagers.

In 1997, he switched to the strategic planning function, where he worked initially on PepsiCo’s soft drink brands Mirinda and 7Up (but not Pepsi). In time, he got to handle the entire Pepsi portfolio, Nestle Ketchup and Maggi, the Nestle confectionery business (KitKat, Munch and Milkybar), ITC (Wills Classic and Bristol) and Reckitt Benckiser (Dettol and Lizol).

In 2002, he shifted back to account management. In early 2003, he began working on the first GSK brand in JWT’s kitty, Horlicks. Later in the same year, the entire GSK portfolio moved to him, and he worked on all the company’s brands, including Horlicks variants Boost, Viva and Maltova.

Between 2004 and 2007, Pandey also worked on the Bharti DTH, SBI Credit Cards and Monster.com accounts.

Talking about his long association with JWT, Pandey says, “A rich culture, stability, a human agency, with the best systems in place – that’s what defines JWT.”

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