Asheesh Malhotra joins Bates CHI&Partners as President and Mumbai Head

He has over 18 years of experience and has worked on some big accounts such as Unilever, Castrol and Johnson and Johnson.

Bates CHI&Partners has appointed Asheesh Malhotra as president and head of Mumbai. He will report to Srikanth VS, CEO and work closely with Sourabh Mishra (chief strategy officer), Manmohan Anchan (chief creative officer), Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar (NCD) and other members of the management team, to drive the growth agenda in India.

Malhotra moves after five years in Ogilvy Mumbai where he was senior vice president leading the beverage business of Unilever for South Asia. Before Ogilvy, he worked at Lowe Lintas for over eight years. He has won several accolades such as the Effies.

V.S. Srikanth responds, "Asheesh is one of the most talented people in our business today. His appointment is a key to our growth agenda." From 2001 to 2009, Malhotra worked at Lowe Mumbai where he headed the Prudential Life Insurance brand since its inception in India. A few years on, the business won him two Effie silvers (on a hitherto serious category like life insurance), besides contributing in making the brand the No.1 private life insurer in India for seven years in a row. He also headed the J&J Baby business there.

Speaking on the occasion, Malhotra said, "Bates CHI&Partners breaks the traditional mould of 'in-house only talent and resources' and, instead, practices true collaboration by pulling together the best resources that the world has to offer, especially in the disciplines of digital, social and retail. As a result, we can offer solutions that are designed to break through more quickly, thus saving clients loads of media bucks. Recent interactions with clients have reaffirmed the need for such a nimble and creative agency model."

Bates CHI&Partners was formed in December 2012, and brings together Bates - an Asian agency with 14 offices in nine countries, and CHI, a UK-based agency with 16 offices worldwide and a creative corridor from Shanghai to London and New York.

In India, Bates CHI&Partners' clients are Dell, Colgate, Schneider Electric, Tata AIA, Marico, Creative Garments, Balmer Lawrie, PC Chandra, Ashok Leyland, Kumar Properties, Hamilton Beach, General Insurance Council.