What's Your Problem gets Divya Saxena on board as 'Founder- Member'

A year after its launch, What's Your Problem has further beefed up its creative team with senior-level hires. Divya Saxena joins as founder-member and the fifth member of the core team which includes Amit and Praful Akali, Huzefa Roowala, and Hammad Khan. Saxena comes in as director, creative and design.

Saxena will partner Roowala and Khan to take responsibility of the creative product. She comes with over 10 years of experience in various agencies, including Mc Cann, JWT, DDB Mudra, and Grey Worldwide. Her last stint was as creative director at Contract Advertising. She has worked on brands such as Cadbury's, Reliance, Nokia, Airtel DTH, Perfetti, ESPN, Philips, Wrigley, HP, Nestle Maggi, Nescafe, Fiat Punto, Killer, Shaze, and Femina. Saxena has also been nominated in several award shows including One Show, Cannes, Adfest, and Spikes Asia.

Commenting on the development, Amit Akali, managing partner and creative head, WYP, says, "Last year was a fantastic year for us and the business is now investing back in the business and our clients' needs. We are very clear that art and design play an important role in the digital world today, and that is one of the pillars we want to build WYP on. We've been on the lookout for a suitable art head and fifth member of the core team. Most of our employees are young (other than me!), multi-faceted and believe in the big idea. (Divya) Saxena completely fits the bill. She's got a cutting edge design sense, the talent to make anything look great. At the same time, she believes in brand-building and media-neutral ideas."

On her new role, Saxena says, "Coming from a background of mainline agencies to a fully-integrated digital set-up at WYP is obviously challenging. But, as we say, the idea is always media-neutral. I am banking on that and excited about the fact that we will get to do work that we really want to do. It is also great that I'll be involved in creating the kind of place where I've always wanted to work."

Saxena is supported by two senior art hires -- Sameer Murudkur who joins as associate creative director, and Shihab Kareem as Group head, art.

Murudkur has over 15 years of experience in advertising with agencies such as Soho Square (Ogilvy's second agency), Triton Communications, and Vyas Giannetti Creative. Brands he has worked on include Flying Machine jeans, ITC Soap and Shampoo, Radio City 91.1FM, NG Mutual Fund, Mont Blanc, Dainik Bhaskar, Bajaj Appliances, Perfetti (Stop Not), and Vespa. He also worked on the BJP Election campaign of 2014 (Abki Baar Modi Sarkar), which won the Grand Effie. Murudkur is also a photographer.

Kareem has over eight years of experience in advertising. His last assignment was with Grey Bengaluru. He has worked on various accounts such as Duracell, Dell, and Britannia, winning various awards including Spikes Asia, Adfest, Kyoorius, and Abby's. He's passionate about film-making and has directed ad films, as well as been assistant director for feature films, including the newly-released 'Waiting'.

The copy and technology team gets further strengthened with the joining of Mihir Chitre as Group head. He's got six years of experience at agencies including Web Chutney and Quasar. He joins WYP after a stint at OgilvyOne, where he conceptualised and executed campaigns such as Transferkars for Tata Sky, #DonateAWall for Asian Paints. He has worked on several brands including Amul Macho, Castrol, Vodafone, Google India, and Tata Salt.

When he's not fiddling with ideas for brands, Chitre indulges in poetry. His first book 'Hyphenated' was published by the Sahitya Akademi.

Akali adds, "All our new hires bring multi-faceted talents such as photography, film-making, and poetry to the table. Now that we've got our third-level, second-level, and even new partners in place, we're confident to add scale, and reinforce the WYP promise. With nearly 80-plus employees, along with Medulla, we're clearly poised for our next phase of growth."