MAM
Mullen Lintas appoints Hari Krishnan as CEO, effective from Jan 2020
MUMBAI: Mullen Lintas has announced the appointment of Hari Krishnan as the chief executive officer of the company. The appointment will be effective, January 2020. Krishnan moves from Lowe Lintas, where he was the president and spearheading the South operations of the agency.
MullenLowe Lintas Group CEO, Virat Tandon said, “When we were looking for the best person to lead the agency as CEO, Hari was a natural choice. He has the best credentials in the country as a P&L leader, an entrepreneur and as a brand and idea champion.”
Tandon said,” Hari's appointment is another big step to ensure that Mullen Lintas lives up to its purpose of Challenger Thinking and offers clients a credible alternative to the top 2-3 agencies.”
According to the Group CEO, Hari’s insatiable appetite for growth, challenges, and creative excellence makes him the perfect candidate to drive Mullen Lintas into its next phase of growth and discovery.
Mullen Lintas CEO Hari Krishnan said “If Lowe Lintas is like an aircraft carrier in the high seas – solid, powerful and battle-ready 24/7, then Mullen Lintas is a turbocharged, supercar with a V12 engine that has zoomed its way into the top 10 list, punching well above its weight and leaving behind some of its illustrious counterparts.”
According to Krishnan, the creative firepower, pace, agility and intensity of Mullen Lintas is just what brands need in a marketing world that is mutating and evolving rapidly.
Being scary and excited to embark new journey, Krishnan said, looking forward to partnering the amazingly talented and passionate gang of Mullenials.
Donning the new role at Mullen Lintas, his mandate will be to further strengthen the agency's position and reputation in the industry.
Krishnan has worked across multiple product categories and consumer segments with and experience of over 20 years in the advertising and marketing industry. Before his stint at Lowe Lintas, South, he was the CEO of MullenLowe Group, Sri Lanka where he led the acquisition and transformation of the agency leading it to become the Effie Agency of the Year back in 2015.
From global brands to start-up brands, Krishnan has partnered a diverse portfolio and has led large multi-cultural teams and P&L operations successfully. He has experience working with brands such as GREY Global, JWT and was VP Marketing at Star TV, in the past.
The key brands he has partnered include Unilever, Britannia, MRF, Flipkart, Swiggy, Phonepe, Tanishq, Fastrack, Titan, Arvind Brands, Parle, Ferrero Rocher, 3M, DELL, Ford, Maruti Suzuki, Audi, Future Group amongst others.
Under his watch at Lowe Lintas, Bangalore, the agency has seen a slew of new business acquisitions such as PhonePe, Xiaomi, ShareChat, MedLife, Cure.fit, Lenskart, Cricbuzz, 3M Scotch Brite, Manipal Healthcare, Britannia Timepass, Shell Lubricants, etc.
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
