Karthik Lakshminarayan joins Madison Media as COO, Crest

He has over 16 years of experience in media, and will handle the ITC AoR at Madison.

Madison Media has roped in Karthik Lakshminarayan as the chief operating officer (COO) of Crest, a business unit under Platinum Media, to handle the ITC AoR. He will alternate between the Bengaluru and Kolkata operations of ITC. Lakshminarayan joins in from Turmeric Vision where he was the COO for the company's TV channel FoodFood.

On his appointment, Punitha Arumugam, Group CEO (chief executive officer), Madison Media, remarks in an official statement, "The best testament for Madison Media as an organisation is when ex-Madisonites as talented as Lakshminarayan, are willing to accept and explore career opportunities with us once again."

Basabdatta Chowdhuri, chief executive officer, Platinum Media, says, "We have done a lot of interesting and exciting work for ITC in the last one year, and I look forward to Lakshminarayan lead our ITC AoR team."

Lakshminarayan comments on his return to Madison, "It is good to be back to Madison Media, post my stint in the broadcast and production side of business, which I will leverage to deliver better value to Madison and its clients. I look forward to this new chapter in my career."

Lakshminarayan has over 16 years of experience in media. He started his career as a media planner at Stratagem Media and later moved to Leo Burnett (then known as Chaitra Leo Burnett) as media manager.

He was then appointed the vice-president for Initiative Media, but soon moved to Madison Media Communications where he spent eight years as associate media director. With time, he moved up the ladder to become the COO at Madison Media Infinity (MMI). At MMI, the brands on which he worked included Cadbury, Marico, Godrej, McDonald's, Axis Bank, Bharti AXA Insurance, and Asian Paints. He handled media planning, buying, and servicing.

MMI was followed by Colors. He joined the channel as head of business planning and strategy in March 2008, and was part of the launch team.

Lakshminarayan has also worked in media agencies such as Initiative Media, and Starcom. Across his career, he has worked on a diverse portfolio of brands such as Infosys, Britannia, Titan, Heinz, Pillsbury and Hallmark, among others.