Cheil brings in Saatchi's Amit Ajwani; gets aggressive on shopper marketing

Based in Mumbai, Ajwani will head Cheil's newly launched shopper marketing agency.

Amit Ajwani, former managing director, Saatchi & Saatchi X India (Publicis Group's global shopper marketing agency that was launched in India in 2010) has moved to Cheil. He will serve as vice-president and India head of Cheil's new shopper marketing division.

His appointment is part of Cheil's efforts to ramp up its recently launched shopper marketing offering in the country. The brand name of this specialised division could not be ascertained at the time of filing this report.

Ajwani will be based in Mumbai. He will report to John Koo, managing director ofCheil's Southwest Asia region, who is also responsible for the agency's Indian operations. Koo stepped into this role in April, 2012. Koo had, at the time, replaced Jae Hong Kim, who moved to Cheil's headquarters at Seoul.

Ajwani will also report to Simon Hathaway, who was appointed the agency's European president of shopper, marketing and retail operations in June last year. Interestingly, Hathaway's previous assignment was also with Saatchi; he was the regional CEO (Europe, West Asia, India and Africa) of SaatchiX before he moved to Cheil London. His appointment too, was part of Cheil's efforts to increase its shopper marketing expertise.

Besides Hathaway's global move, on the Indian front too, Ajwani is not the first to have quit Saatchi to join Cheil. Last week, afaqs! reported on the movement of Jaibeer Ahmad, vice-president, Saatchi & Saatchi to Cheil Worldwide (Delhi), whose mandate now includes growing the agency's non-Samsung business portfolio and developing its new business front.

It may be recalled that prior to Ahmad's move, Hari Krishnan (former head, WPP Global Team Ford) also joined Cheil around a month back as the replacement for Alok Agrawal, former chief operating officer of Cheil Worldwide SW Asia, who quit the agency to join Zee News as chief executive officer.

Before joining Saatchi & Saatchi X, Ajwani was with Grey Worldwide, where he worked as retail head, India. Earlier, he was with JWT.