40 Under 40 2021: Rohan Mehta, Kinnect

Rohan Mehta

Founder and CEO
Kinnect
India

Building a successful digital agency from scratch in a highly competitive market like India requires many talents. Scaling it from a team of two to more than 350 employees across three cities in 10 years before acquisition requires even more. But Rohan Mehta is multi-skilled, and colleagues credit him with three key qualities that have served as the backbone for success.  

The first is a dogged insistence on learning and mastering aspects of digital marketing not yet understood, which kept Kinnect in step with ever-changing digital trends. Mehta not only prides himself on this, but made it a core company value, embodied in ‘KinnectEdge’ training programmes to continually upskill ‘Kinnectors’. This year, his agency conducted 86 creative and 25 media-specific training sessions. Mehta also developed a hands-on digital training curriculum with the Indian Institute of Digital Education (IIDE), building an industry talent pool in the process.

This brings us to Mehta’s second skill: his eye for talent and his heart for nurturing. Colleagues say he is a talent scout, always on the hunt for undiscovered potential that only needs the right tools and support. By fostering honest communication, encouraging idea sharing, keeping an open-door policy and continuing to lead by example with a hands-on approach, Mehta provides such support. Keen to create an open, inclusive culture that can be a force for good, Mehta encourages a series of employee-driven programmes such as #KinnectorsGiveBack to serve the underprivileged, #GetALife to support physical and mental well-being and #KinnectPRIDE to encourage Kinnectors who identify with the LGBTQ+ community to take pride in who they are.

Finally, the third ace up Mehta’s sleeve is his business acumen and sharp sense of numbers, which have strengthened Kinnect’s bottom line through the pandemic. He’s personally involved in pitching for and acquiring recession-proof clients such as TikTok, Amazon and Disney+ Hotstar while bringing in new retainers from existing clients. Boasting a client retention rate of 86% over the past year, Mehta can revel in the fact that total billed revenue of Kinnect increased 34% in that time.

But Mehta’s biggest achievement of the past year was to bring Kinnect under the umbrella of the FCB Group, thus transitioning his agency into the big leagues. Little wonder he’s also been elected to the executive committee of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI).