Rediffusion hires Tathagat Jena as Delhi Branch Chief

Tathagat Jena or TJ as he is widely known in marketing circles, has over two decades of experience on both the client side, and at the agency end. A former ad executive, having worked in agencies like Lowe Lintas, Ogilvy & Leo Burnett on several big clients like Maruti, Hutch, McDonald's & MakeMyTrip, Tathagat did a stint at international luxury retail brand Lladro, before moving on to Samsung India in 2008 where he led marketing, brand & product campaigns, media & e-commerce for the smartphone division for 9 long years. His last corporate stint was with Chinese smartphone major Transsion as CMO of Infinix mobiles.

Tathagat says “I am happy to join an agency with a fantastic and unique legacy. At a time when clients are increasingly seeking ‘marketing partnerships’ from their communication agencies, Rediffusion aims to offer the complete suite of digital first solutions & demonstrate capabilities beyond just communications. Along the way I hope to have some fun co-creating success stories that Rediffusion is famous for.”

Welcoming Tathagat to Rediffusion, Navonil Chatterjee, joint president of the agency said, “In Tatha we have a good combo of a good agency man and a matured client hand, especially one who has worked in a highly competitive category like mobile handsets. He will now bring all those learnings to Rediffusion Delhi. For us Delhi was one of our most important geographies with Maruti, Airtel, Pepsi all being our clients born in that office. Tatha is tasked to bring back the effervescence to the Delhi office. We have signed up some very interesting and live-wire businesses in Delhi and we look forward to a big Rediffusion operation in India’s capital city in the days to come.”

Interestingly, Dr. Sandeep Goyal, the new managing director of Rediffusion was Branch Manager of its Delhi office from 1994 to 1997, and it was from there that he helped launch the Airtel brand in 1995.

Last week Rediffusion announced that Vivek Bahl has also joined its Delhi office as its Digital Lead. “Delhi is a big priority for us going forward,” emphasised Chatterjee.