Wieden+Kennedy shuts shop in India

New Delhi: Wieden+Kennedy on Friday announced that it will be shutting its advertising services in India by the end of this year following the departure of Chief Creative Officer Santosh Padhi (Paddy), President Ayesha Ghosh, and Head of Delhi Shreekant Srinivasan.

In a statement, Wieden+Kennedy said it is streamlining its presence in India, winding down operations in Mumbai (through the end of 2024) and scaling back its workforce in the agency’s Delhi office to a workforce of employees who will work with the agency’s global leadership to support critical shared services and global business operations—which will not include advertising services at this time.

“The remaining Delhi employees will report into global leadership as we are not rehiring leadership to replace Paddy and Ayesha, and will be closing the Mumbai office. For the foreseeable future we won’t be taking on client opportunities in Delhi or Mumbai,” W+K said.

“We growing and setting up shop in places globally that are aligned with our current needs (clients and future) which at this time means not doubling down on India, instead scaling back and taking a moment to figure out how the Indian market fits into our future,” the agency said.

The move will see a total of 40 employees departing from the agency (25 from Mumbai and 15 from the Delhi office).

Paddy, Ghosh and Srinivasan will remain with the agency until the end of the year to help with the transition.

Moving forward, the remaining Delhi employees will report to global leads. 

Paddy joined W+K as CCO in early 2022 and was joined by his former Taproot colleague, Ayesha Ghosh shortly after. 

Together the pair opened W+K in Mumbai and oversaw creative and business operations across Mumbai and Delhi. 

Combined, both offices won new business and created campaigns for brands including, Vida from Hero Motocorp, Jindal’s Steel of Oman, Jockey’s Freedom or Nothing, G Shock’s Rise Above the Shocks, Hero Cycles’ Cycle Hero Hai, Clove Dental’s Whistle, Brownkind skin care, among others.

“We want to extend our gratitude to Paddy, Ayesha, and all the employees in Mumbai and Delhi. They have been great colleagues and friends. We deeply appreciate the hard work and dedication from the departing staff, it is never easy to say goodbye to employees and as we scale back our workforce we are working with the departing employees to make sure their transition is as smooth as possible,” the statement said.