Rediffusion's Anant Pal Singh moves to Tata Teleservices as GM, brands

Singh was the national business head on the Airtel account at Rediffusion Y&R.

Anant Pal Singh has joined the marketing team at Tata Teleservices as general manager, brands. His immediate mandate entails managing all branding related activities for Virgin Mobile.

Tata Teleservices has five brands, namely, Tata Indicom, Tata Docomo, Virgin Mobile, Tata Walky and Tata Photon.

Prior to this move, Singh served as vice-president at creative agency, Rediffusion Y&R, where he headed the Airtel account as national business head.

Singh, when contacted, confirmed the move, but was unable to comment any further about his new role at Tata Teleservices.

It has also been learnt that at Tata Teleservices, Singh will report to Ritesh Ghoshal, head, marketing communications, Tata Docomo and Virgin Mobile. A source informs, on grounds of anonymity, that the operations for the two brands, Virgin and Docomo, are in the process of being integrated. It thus follows that Singh's position is a new one, created especially for him.

Singh started his career in advertising in Ogilvy, from where he moved on to Rediffusion Y&R. Since 2004, Singh worked at Everest Brand Solutions -- the second agency of Rediffusion Y&R. When he joined, he was account director at the agency's Mumbai branch, five years after which he went on to head the agency's Delhi operations.

When Mahesh 'Mash' Chauhan, president at Everest, joined Rediffusion Y&R (after Preet Bedi quit), Singh left the agency and moved on to Dentsu Marcom as general manager. However, within a matter of five months, Singh rejoined Mash's team at Rediffusion Y&R and served as vice-president on the Airtel account.

It may be recalled that the Airtel account moved from Rediffusion to JWT a few months back. The former had been handling this account since its inception in the '90s.