MAM
Ajay Gahlaut moves on from Publicis Worldwide
NEW DELHIL Ajay Gahlaut, CCO and MD of Publicis Worldwide, India (PWW) has decided to move on from the agency and pursue his passion on a personal front. He will be with the agency until mid-August and will ensure a steady handover to all concerned teams and clients.
The agency has also announced the elevation of Vikash Chemjong and Basabjit ‘Tito’ Mazumdar to the role of Joint NCDs. The duo would take on the role of managing the creative mandate for all brands under PWW including Publicis Capital, Publicis Ambience, Publicis Beehive, Publicis Health, Publicis Emil and Publicis Business and will report to Publicis Worldwide MD Srija Chatterjee, India.
Publicis Groupe South Asia CEO Anupriya Acharya says, “Working with Ajay has been a great experience even though our overlap has been only six months! He has built a great team here and we thank him for all his contributions. Am sure he will be successful in whatever he chooses to do next and our best wishes are with him.”
Vikash and Tito had joined Publicis Capital over a year ago as National Creative Directors. Over the past one year, they have been instrumental in shaping the creative universe of some key brands under Publicis Capital including Beam Suntory, GUS, GPI, Nestle, Goodricke, Emami to name a few. Prior to joining Publicis, they both were Group Creative Directors at Ogilvy India and have over four decades of creative experience between them.
Srija Chatterjee said, “Ajay has been a great friend and a fantastic creative leader to have around. Over his 18-month long stint, he has helped build and nurture the creative process and output for a number of brands at the agency. I wish him a great ride in his future endeavours.”
On the new roles for Vikash and Tito, Srija added, “We are fortunate to be running on a Groupe philosophy that thrives on the model of collaboration and ensure that we breed and train talent of great calibre. To that end, both Vikash and Tito come with over 40+ years of combined work experience and have been successfully leading the Publicis Capital business for the last one year, partnering some of our clients in delivering some great work. I look forward to them playing a key role in raising the creative bar.”
Ajay Gahlaut said, “For me it has been a wonderful year and a half at Publicis. I have made many friends, built a powerhouse creative team and done some nice work. The only reason for moving on is a desire to try new things. This is an extremely exciting time for all kinds of creative content in the country. I have a couple of interesting options I can explore. And while I will never say never to advertising, I thought it was a good time to attempt some things I hadn’t tried before.”
Gahlaut remarked that it was extremely satisfying to see Vikash and Tito elevated as creative heads. “I have always believed in promoting from within and I’m sure that the duo will rise to the occasion. Ranadeep Dasgupta, meanwhile, will look after the New Delhi office and I’m certain that he too will shine in his new role.”
Vikash and Tito affirmed, “It’s a great honour for the both of us. This is a new role but we will deal with it in much the same way as we have dealt with all our briefs. Just roll up our sleeves, order some excellent food and keep at it until we are satisfied. Both with the food and with the ideas! Because we have realised over the years, that if we are happy and convinced about our ideas, more often than not, so are our clients!”
Gahlaut has been a part of noteworthy campaigns such as Emami Navratna – ‘Raahat Raja featuring Salman Khan’, HDFC MF – ‘Baat Bane Kishton Mein’ and Skoda Auto – ‘Peace of Mind’ among others.
Brands
Tessolve lands a semiconductor veteran to drive its next big push
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, who started his career at ISRO and has spent 35 years building chips and companies, joins the Bengaluru-based firm as president and chief operating officer
BENGALURU: Tessolve has never been shy about its ambitions. The Bengaluru-based engineering services firm already counts 18 of the world’s top 20 semiconductor companies among its clients, employs more than 3,500 engineers across 12 countries, and last year pocketed a $150m investment from TPG. Now it has hired the executive it believes can turn those assets into something bigger. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, a 35-year semiconductor veteran who once built satellite payloads for ISRO and has since scaled engineering organisations across three continents, joins as president and chief operating officer, effective immediately.
THE MAN AND THE MANDATE
The appointment is, by any measure, a serious hire. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu comes to Tessolve after senior leadership stints at HCL Technologies, Altran and Wipro, where he managed large profit-and-loss portfolios and oversaw cross-regional teams. Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in bringing more than 1,000 new products to market across the high-tech, energy and manufacturing verticals. Before the private sector claimed him, he began his working life as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributing to research and development in charge-coupled device technology and satellite payloads, a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
In his new role, he will lead Tessolve’s global growth strategy: expanding its engineering capabilities, deepening customer relationships and accelerating innovation across semiconductor and high-performance computing domains. The brief is broad, but the context is specific. Tessolve operates in the $550 billion global semiconductor market, and its recent moves, the acquisition of Germany’s Dream Chip Technologies and the TPG funding round, have sharpened both its reach and its expectations.
Srini Chinamilli, co-founder and chief executive of Tessolve, is characteristically direct about why Ravi Kumar Chirugudu was the choice:
“As we scale our global semiconductor and system engineering capabilities, Ravi’s appointment marks an important step forward. As global semiconductor demand continues to accelerate across industries, it is creating significant opportunities across the semiconductor lifecycle, from design, packaging, validation and systems integration. Ravi’s deep knowledge and leadership in this ecosystem brings the right mix of industry expertise, customer connect and execution capability, which will play a key role in strengthening our position as a trusted global engineering partner and reinforcing our market leadership.”
THE NEW ARRIVAL SPEAKS
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, for his part, frames the move in terms of timing and culture, two factors that veteran executives tend to weigh as heavily as title or compensation:
“I am happy to join Tessolve at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving towards more complex, AI-driven systems. What stands out to me is its strong people-first culture and its commitment to bringing value to its customers. The strength of its global team, combined with its deep expertise in semiconductor innovation and next-generation product engineering, creates a solid foundation to build differentiated, scalable solutions. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive strategic growth and strengthen its role in shaping the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
The reference to AI-driven systems is not incidental. The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a structural reshaping, driven by the insatiable compute demands of artificial intelligence. For engineering services firms like Tessolve, which offers end-to-end capabilities from silicon design to packaged parts and invests in high-performance computing, high-speed interfaces, photonics and 5G, the moment is both an opportunity and a test. The company says it is well positioned to capture the next wave of industry growth. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu is now the person who has to prove it.
He came in from outer space, literally, and spent three decades learning how the semiconductor industry works from the inside out. Now Tessolve is betting that accumulated knowledge can help it cross the next frontier. In the $550 billion global chip market, the gap between ambition and execution is measured in engineering hours and leadership quality. Tessolve has just gone shopping for both.
