Simi Sabhaney quits Ogilvy to join Dentsu

After a stint of over 23 years with the WPP creative agency, Sabhaney quits as president, Bengaluru and Chennai.

Simi Sabhaney, president, Bengaluru and Chennai, Ogilvy India, has decided to move on.

Sabhaney, who has spent over 23 years at the WPP agency, is slated to join Dentsu Communications as CEO. At the time of filing this report, Sabhaney was unavailable for comment. Sources say she will commence duties in mid-January, 2014.

At Ogilvy, she has worked on several accounts including Unilever's F&B brands, Titan, Madhura Garments, ITC Foods, Cadbury, Worldspace, Canara Bank, Skol Breweries, Yahoo, Prestige and Rohan Builders, among others. Her journey in O&M has taken her from account executive to president. While she was primarily based at Ogilvy's Bengaluru office, she also spent around four years at Ogilvy's Mumbai office (1999-2003), where she worked on Unilever's F&B brands, brands from Cadbury, and a US Aid-funded programme, Goli ke Hamjoli.

Later, in 2008, she was appointed president for the agency's South branches - Bengaluru and Chennai.

Recall that at the time, along with Sabhaney, Ogilvy had also promoted Hephzibah Pathak to the post of president, Ogilvy Mumbai. The decision was one taken by the Ogilvy India Board. Earlier, Pathak was O&M Mumbai's executive brand director. At the time of this development, Ogilvy's creative supreme Piyush Pandey had said in a press note, "Simi (Sabhaney) has done a superb job in building the Ogilvy brand in Bengaluru and has been a great support to Prateek Srivastava, president, Ogilvy South India."

For the record, Ogilvy recently lost another senior executive, the aforementioned Prateek Srivastava -- former president, North and South -- in June, 2013. After spending six years at the agency, Srivastava decided to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams. He is currently the co-founder at ChapterFive Brand Solutions. The company aims at finding solutions to tough marketing problems, creating communication for brands and recommending go-to-market strategies for brands.