Publicis Worldwide India lead Ajay Gahlaut to exit

The chief creative officer and managing director of Publicis Worldwide India, Ajay Gahlaut, has decided to move on from the agency.

 

Gahlaut, who has been in the role for 18 months, will be with the agency until mid-August. He is moving on to "try new things", he said.

 

He said: "For me it has been a wonderful year and a half at Publicis. I have made many friends, built a powerhouse creative team and done some nice work. The only reason for moving on is a desire to try new things. This is an extremely exciting time for all kinds of creative content in the country. I have a couple of interesting options I can explore. And while I will never say never to advertising, I thought it was a good time to attempt some things I hadn’t tried before."

 

Publicis Worldwide India has elevated Vikash Chemjong and Basabjit ‘Tito’ Mazumdar to the role of joint national creative directors. The duo will be managing the creative mandate for all brands under Publicis Worldwide including Publicis Capital, Publicis Ambience, Publicis Beehive, Publicis Health, Publicis Emil and Publicis Business.

 

Prior to this Chemjong and Mazumdar were national creative directors at Publicis Capital. They will report to Srija Chatterjee, managing director of Publicis Worldwide India.

 

 

Anupriya Acharya, CEO of Publicis Groupe South Asia, said: “Working with Ajay has been a great experience even though our overlap has been only six months! He has built a great team here and we thank him for all his contributions. Am sure he will be successful in whatever he chooses to do next and our best wishes are with him.”

 

Chemjong and Mazumdar added: “It’s a great honour for the both of us. This is a new role but we will deal with it in much the same way as we have dealt with all our briefs. Just roll up our sleeves, order some excellent food and keep at it until we are satisfied. Both with the food and with the ideas! Because we have realised over the years, that if we are happy and convinced about our ideas, more often than not, so are our clients!”