Ogilvy Gurgaon strengthens leadership team

The Gurgaon office of Ogilvy & Mather has announced new additions to its senior management team.

Ogilvy has made a few appointments to its Gurgaon branch. Alok Sinha, Chandana Agarwal and Namrata Balwani have been brought on board in different capacities.

As part of this exercise, Sinha has been brought in as president, planning. With over 20 years of experience across research, advertising, media and digital, Sinha has worked with brands like IBM, Unilever and Vodafone. He also has extensive experience across South East Asia, in a regional communications planning role at Aegis and, subsequently, as lead on the P&G businesses at Carat, Philippines. Most recently, he led the strategic digital mandate for Mindshare in South Asia, where his focus was on strengthening Mindshare's planning product and the strong integration of digital thinking on businesses including futuristic projects like the Loop Room.

On his appointment, Sinha says, "It's a homecoming for me. I'm quite excited at the prospect of bringing a 'no boundaries' approach to account planning for clients - having traversed the entire spectrum myself. The communication business is at the confluence of two tectonic forces - content and data. Ogilvy Delhi has some of the most prestigious clients and talent in the country and my job is to try and help both our clients and our talent effectively navigate this confluence for business success."

Meanwhile, Agarwal has taken on the role of managing partner of the advertising function. Agarwal has been with Soho Square and Ogilvy Gurgaon for over four years now and has been responsible for great work across brands like Philips, Sprite, Taco Bell, Pernod Ricard and Honda, among others.

Commenting on her new role, she shares, "The business and process of advertising is going through a tectonic change. These are exciting and challenging times, and I am all charged and geared to work with Kapil and the leadership team here to ensure that Ogilvy advertising is at the forefront of this change."

Furthermore, Namrata Balwani has been appointed as senior vice president and head of OgilvyOne, Gurgaon. Balwani moves in from Media2win, a digital agency she co-founded, where she was CEO. A graduate from MICA, she has been at the forefront of media and the digital medium in particular, leading a host of brands to success and recognition across the Abbys, Yahoo Big Idea Chair, IAMAI, Campaign India & many other industry awards.

On her appointment, Balwani says, "I am excited to lead an amazing OgilvyOne team in Gurgaon. Digital platforms and connectivity, especially mobile, are transforming India at a speed never seen before. This is the best time to not only be a part of the transformation, but also lead the charge and OgilvyOne is well poised to do that for all its brand partners."

Ajay Gahlaut, executive creative director, Ogilvy North, says, "As our business gets more dynamic and interconnected every day, we are constantly looking for leaders who can join the dots effectively and enable a better, more integrated creative product."