Sanjay Thapar moves to Bates as CEO

Thapar is an old hand at Ogilvy, where he has worked for 14 years.

Sanjay Thapar, head, North, Ogilvy has been moved to Bates India as chief executive officer. The move apparently aims to revive the Bates India office, which has been under tremendous pressure to perform for some time now.

The agency saw the exit of two of its senior executives - Sonal Dabral (regional executive director and chairman) and Sandeep Pathak (CEO) in January. A month later, Ranjan Kapur, the country head for WPP India, was named chairman of Bates India.

Meanwhile, Prateek Srivastava, group president, South, Ogilvy India has been given additional charges of the northern region.

Both Ogilvy and Bates have the same leadership in the region. Tim Isaac serves the dual role of chairman, Bates Asia and chairman, Ogilvy Asia Pacific.

In an earlier interview with afaqs!, Isaac had said, "In my mind, 2011 was a wasted year for Bates in India. We grew at 8 per cent here, which is reasonable but less than half of what we were expecting to grow at. And, most of the growth didn't come from Mumbai or Delhi advertising; I must say, Praveen Vadhera's OOH unit led to the growth that we did have."

Thapar has been with O&M for 14 years now. He joined the agency in 1998, beginning as manager at the Kolkata branch. He relocated to the Delhi branch in 2002 as branch head for the advertising function.

In 2004, when he was promoted as president of the Delhi branch, he was given the responsibility of looking after all the functions of O&M Delhi, broadening his sphere from advertising to other functions as well. He was in charge of Ogilvy Landscapes (outdoor media), Ogilvy Outreach (rural communication), OgilvyLive (ground level brand communication), Ogilvy Signscapes (retail brand identity) and OgilvyAction in Delhi.

Thapar did not begin his career with advertising. He started off as a management trainee at Bata in 1987. He spent eight years there and was merchandising manager for the northern region when he moved out.

He entered the world of advertising when he joined MAA Bozell in 1994; he worked there for three years. He also had a short stint at Mudra Kolkata.