Rajesh Bhatia joins Neo@Ogilvy India as president and country head

He recently quit Cheil Worldwide as digital head.

While OgilvyOne's Sanjeev Jasani is now heading digital at Cheil, Rajesh Bhatia, the former digital head of Cheil Worldwide India, has been appointed as the president and country head of Neo@Ogilvy, the performance marketing network of Ogilvy & Mather India.

In this new role, Bhatia will grow the agency exponentially with a clear focus on mobile and e-commerce.

Launched in 2006, Neo@Ogilvy provides innovative digital media solutions across a global footprint. The agency has more than 40 offices around the world; however, in India, it still is a small entity handling eight to ten accounts currently.

Speaking on the appointment, Vikram Menon, president and country head, OgilvyOne Worldwide India, says, "Rajesh has a track record of starting off a small entity and growing it in stature and size. Therefore, he is a perfect fit for Neo@Ogilvy. He understands the vision and ambition we have for Neo."

On his new role, Bhatia says that he was pleasantly surprised with the scale and sophistication that Neo@Ogilvy has, belonging to an agency renowned for traditional advertising. "Having spent two decades around many facets of digital marketing, I firmly believe that performance media, analytics and technology will lead the next wave of digital evolution. These areas are defining, both at the client's as well as the agency's side, how digital marketing is shaping. This has driven me to join Neo@Ogilvy," he says.

His agenda is two-pronged - to drive growth and enhance the existing capabilities with an increased focus on e-commerce and mobile.

Bhatia has over 20 years of experience spearheading and managing digital transformations for marquee global brands in India. With his experience spanning 360-degree marketing communications (Digital, CRM, Data & Analytics, Direct, Activations, B2B), he has worked towards transforming mid-sized traditional agencies into leading digital agencies (Havas Worldwide 4D, Cheil Digital).

He was the brain behind Cheil India's transformation from being a large traditional creative and BTL set-up to a 'digital first' agency. He was also responsible for setting up Cheil Digital. He was leading a team of 90 digital specialists across digital strategy, digital creative campaigns, digital media, CRM and B2B, working on Samsung and other newly acquired businesses.

Prior to joining Cheil, he was president - Havas Worldwide 4D (then Euro RSCG 4D), where he set up and built the digital offering from scratch, and turned it into one of India's largest digital business in a short span of three years. At Havas Worldwide 4D, he drove the 'digital first' positioning for brands such as Nokia, IBM, Airtel, Max Life Insurance, Unilever (FAL) and Reckitt Benckiser ((Dettol, Harpic, Veet, Vanish, Mortein), among others. His love for digital started at Digitas (then Solutions and later Publicis Solutions), where he managed digital and CRM mandates for clients such as HP, Microsoft and Intel.