Ogilvy India announces new restructured creative leadership

Ogilvy & Mather has announced new integrated Creative Leadership w.e.f August 1, 2017. Ajay Gahlaut will be elevated to the Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy North and Deputy CCO, Ogilvy India. Sukesh Nayak, Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha are named as Chief Creative Officers, Ogilvy West. Mahesh Gharat and Azazul Haque named Chief Creative Officers, Ogilvy South. All CCOs will report directly to Sonal Dabral, Group CCO and Vice Chairman Ogilvy India.

They will lead the newly integrated creative departments across Ogilvy’s offices in India, bringing advertising and digital creatives together into cohesive, integrated units to serve our clients better. 

Piyush Pandey

Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and Creative Director, Ogilvy South Asia, said, “Every Ogilvy office in India has fantastic young creative leaders at the helm. Their work speaks for them. Ajay, Sukesh, Kainaz, Harshad, Azaz and Mahesh will lead the new integrated creative culture in each of our offices with positivity and freshness. They have the maturity and sensitivity to partner the senior talent we have in each office, and lead them as a team. New energy is essential to keep creative cultures vibrant and the new integrated mandate will lead to deeper integrated, better work across our clients.”

Kunal Jeswani

Kunal Jeswani, CEO, Ogilvy India, commented, Ajay, Sukesh, Harshad, Kainaz, Azaz and Mahesh represent the best of Ogilvy creative leadership. The work each of them has championed over the last few years is already new age, integrated work for our biggest clients, and is clearly head and shoulders above the best in our industry. Ogilvy is the epitome of divine discontent, constantly striving to produce better, more creative and more effective work for our clients. Putting these creative leaders in integrated creative leadership roles is both a recognition of their talent and a reflection of our commitment to driving creative excellence across every consumer touch-point.” 

Ogilvy's heart is its creative product. As the communication landscape changes, these young leaders have been tasked with pulling Ogilvy's creative strengths, across media, together to deliver new age, industry leading, integrated work.

Ajay Gahlaut

Gahlaut has been with Ogilvy in his role as Executive Creative Director for the last 9 years.  He has more than twenty years of experience in the business, nearly 14 of these in Ogilvy.  He has worked on brands across all categories over the years.  Some prominent ones being Royal Stag, Voltas air conditioners, Imperial Blue Whisky, Sprite, Limca, Kinley Water, Pan Vilas, BMW, Honda Cars, Philips Lighting, Eno from GSK and several others.  Amongst the many public service campaigns he has worked on, the most well known one is the Pulse Polio Immunisation campaign with Amitabh Bachchan, a campaign that was instrumental in ridding India of the dreaded disease.  He has won multiple awards his work at International and national award shows.  In 2013, he led Ogilvy Gurgaon to a record breaking haul of 8 Lions at the Cannes Lions festival of creativity.  He was also adjudged the winner of a Silver at the Campaign Asia Asian Creative Person of the year.

Karmakar and Rajadhyaksha joined Ogilvy in 2010 and have been one of Ogilvy’s most celebrated senior creative teams since. They have led highly memorable campaigns on Brooke Bond Red Label, Savlon, Titan Raga, IDBI Bank, Dainik Bhaskar, Cadbury Glow, ICICI Lombard, Lenovo, Mumbai Police, JSW Cement, Nazarana Diamonds, Blue Star, Parachute Men and Make Love Not Scars. No strangers to accolades, their work at Ogilvy has been recognised at the Effies, AMEs, Kyoorius, One Show, D&AD, Spikes and Cannes. Their recent ‘Savlon Healthy Hands Chalk Sticks’ campaign picked up seven Cannes Lions at the 2017 Cannes Festival. With 20 years of rich industry experience, they remain madly in love with advertising and are proud Ogilvy Ambassadors.

Nayak joined Ogilvy in 2000 and has grown to become one of the most respected, most sought-after creative partners at Ogilvy. His ability to tell compelling stories is evident across his body of work on Tata Sky, Asian Paints, Bajaj, JSW Steel, Shan Masala, Amazon, Fortune Oil, Google, Economist, Indian Railways, Mattel, Fox Crime, MTDC, Unilever, Wildstone, IAPA- Adoption Awareness and the ICC Cricket World Cup. He was one of the few people from India, listed in Campaign Asia's 40 Under 40 in 2015. Over the years, he has won over 300 national and international awards, including accolades at Effies, AMEs, Kyoorius, Adfest, Spikes, D&AD, London International Awards and Cannes. The one he treasures most, however, is the phone call that he received from his father after the Google Reunion digital film went viral. Sukesh is quintessential Ogilvy – all heart and full of passion for great work.

Gharat and Haque moved from Ogilvy Mumbai to Ogilvy Bangalore as Executive Creative Directors in June 2016. With 38 years of work experience between them, they bring to the table a combined legacy of experience across major brands.  Currently in Bangalore, Haque and Gharat lead creative on brands that cut across sectors such as Titan, Lenovo, Amazon, ITC Mom’s Magic, Bingo and Yipee Noodles, Fortune Oil, Allen Solly, IBM, MTR, United Spirits, Kalyan Jewellers, Motorola and Himalaya among others.

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