Juhi Chaturvedi joins Leo Burnett Mumbai as ECD

A writer who has written film scripts including that of 'Vicky Donor', she started with Ogilvy & Mather, moved to McCann and then Bates

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | July 26, 2013

Juhi Chaturvedi

Juhi Chaturvedi has joined Leo Burnett Mumbai as Executive Creative Director. A writer who has written film scripts including that of 'Vicky Donor' and a storyteller, her last assignment was with Bates.

Born and brought up in Lucknow, she graduated from Lucknow College of Arts and freelanced with The Times of India's Lucknow edition as an illustrator. Even though she didn't start to be a writer, but the air around just got her into it and soon a phase came where she had to decide if she wanted her visiting card to say art director or a writer.

She shifted base to New Delhi in 1996 and soon entered advertising with Ogilvy & Mather where she started working as an art director before moving to Mumbai towards the end of 1999. Ogilvy Mumbai, like Chaturvedi says, is a storyteller's paradise.

A shift to Ogilvy's Bangalore office in 2004 came as a big boost to her career as a writer. This is where her portfolio became rich with brands like Titan, MTR, Unilever, to name a few. She says if you have ideas and conviction, your seniors will help you with craft and she was fortunate that Piyush Pandey spent time on her scripts, cutting them short, finding right words, helping her say what was most important and, most importantly, never approving any trash. That for her was her training as a writer.

After two and a half years in Bangalore, Chaturvedi was back in Mumbai and in 2008 she shifted to McCann, followed by Bates. In these places she handled Stayfree, Marico (Saffola), Cadbury, Tang, Tata AIG among many others.

Parallel to her advertising career, she has a foot in feature films too. Her story, screenplay and dialogues for last year's critically acclaimed and much loved film 'Vicky Donor' has given her a shelf full of all the respectable awards, and now she is waiting for the upcoming release of 'Madras Café'for which she has written the dialogues.

Chaturvedi explains that it was her small town upbringing that nurtured the art of storytelling. "People who grow up in small towns have a lot of time on their hands. I used that time for making up stories. Advertising gave me an opportunity to craft my skills and here I am enjoying every bit of all the ups and downs of a wonderful 17-year career," she says.

Chaturvedi is looking forward to being a part of a wonderful team that KV Sridhar 'Pops', Chief Creative Officer India Sub-continent, and Nitesh Tiwari, Chief Creative Officer, Leo Burnett India, have created over the years. She says the strength of Leo Burnett is that this agency is full of young talented minds who provide immense creative energy.

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