Pranav Harihar Sharma moves on from Grey

Sharma joined the agency earlier this year and is now moving to Mumbai to follow his filmmaking dream.

Pranav Harihar Sharma, executive creative director, Grey Worldwide, has put in his papers. Sharma joined Grey in April 2015 and will be shifting base to Mumbai to concentrate on filmmaking.

Prior to Grey, Sharma was with Linen Lintas as group creative director where he led his team to a Direct Grand Prix at Abby Awards (Goafest 2015) for Dabur Vatika's 'Brave & Beautiful'.

"Leaving Grey is a quick decision but not a decision in haste. At the same time, it is a tough decision. The reason that pushed me to leave a cushy ECD job is the opportunity to make my own feature film in Bollywood. In the last one month, things changed fast and I found myself choosing between an established career in advertising and jumping into a relatively unknown and uncertain territory of filmmaking. I chose the latter because that is my dream since the first day I came into advertising," Sharma says.

Sharma is a freelance filmmaker and has been associated with Film Farm Mumbai, a production house. He writes/directs short films and social projects. He has written and made over 50 ad films so far. Recently, he was chosen as one of the 'Fabulous Four' directors at Adfest 2015 (for his short film 'Watermelon').

In his advertising career, Sharma has worked at Rediffusion -Y&R, DDB Mudra and JWT on brands such as Dabur Vatika, CarDekho.com, Tupperware, Oppo Mobile, DLF, Panasonic India, Yebhi.com, Volvo Cars and Celkon Mobile, among others.

Sharma will continue to be associated with advertising. "I have a few offers from agencies in Mumbai, but right now, I would like to concentrate on filmmaking. That doesn't mean I will leave advertising (it's my first love), but I would like to join a place which gives me flexibility to balance my life between two passions - advertising & filmmaking," he added.