AD Agencies
Catalysts to bridge the gap between digital growth & traditional agencies: Syed Amjad Ali
NEW DELHI: The marketing world has been in a state of constant flux for the past few years. There are emerging trends and technologies popping up everywhere, every few days. Brands are looking forward to ever smarter ways to engage with consumers. And the consumers are moving on to newer platforms for content consumption. While everything is moving at light speed, the marketing world might not really be abreast with trends that are always transforming. This has left a huge void in the industry, which former president of Mullen Lintas Syed Amjad Ali is trying to fill with his new venture, Catalysts.
The start-up aims to utilise the infinite content pool available for non-TV assets today to deliver smarter, sharper, and platform-focused marketing solutions to clients, Ali told Indiantelevision.com’s Mansi Sharma in a recent conversation.
“I have spent more than 25 years at the same organisation, working on some stellar and hugely successful brands and campaigns. And I was thinking about my next step for the past year and a half. That’s when I started planning Catalysts because I felt there is a huge gap in how the world of consumers is evolving and how most agencies are dealing with that. Catalysts will bridge this gap with unique platform-centric solutions to its clients,” he elaborated.
Ali started his marketing journey almost three decades ago and played a big role in the success of brands like LG, OLX, Havell’s, and Micromax in India. He was also one of the founding members of Mullen Lintas in 2015.
It was naturally not a very easy decision for him to move on from an agency that he had started seeing as home. “I owe a lot of what I know to Lintas. It was where I got many unique opportunities at every step of my career and worked personally with legends like Balki (R. Balakrishnan) who helped my professional growth immensely,” he shared.
However, his zest to bring in a substantial change in the course of the industry prompted him to make the jump this year. “A very close friend of mine, who is a big brand consultant, told me that it is the perfect opportunity and time to start something new,” Ali quipped.
He added, “I have very little to lose right now. The whole industry is dealing with a lot at this time and I truly sense a huge pool of opportunities lying out there. The pace at which digital is evolving, especially with Covid2019, and how traditional agencies are evolving are very different. I want to speed up that whole process with the Catalysts.”
Ali also showed immense gratitude towards the whole industry and the people he has previously worked with, who are now extending supporting hands to him.
“Now I realise what I have truly earned with my journey at Lintas. It is this great sense of belief that the industry has in me. It is overwhelming to see so many of my older colleagues and people that I have worked with asking me if I need any help. They all are so eager and willing to participate in the journey of Catalysts,” he noted, with some emotion.
Currently, Ali is working hard to develop a strong open-source model for Catalysts and looking to bring in fresh talent in the small team he is curating for phase one. For the majority of its operations, Catalysts is going to be geo-agnostic and will rely on modern-day technologies to not only deliver solutions but also manage team operations.
He happily added that they are already working on a few client projects, each in very different verticals and stages, and said to expect some exciting news in the coming weeks.
AD Agencies
Publicis Brazil’s creative chief Mauro Ramalho lands the jury chair at Abby Awards 2026
Mauro Ramalho brings 25 years of global advertising firepower to the new creative commerce, use of data and B2B category at Goafest
GOA: The Abby Awards 2026, powered by The One Club and The One Show, has appointed Mauro Ramalho, chief creative officer of Publicis Brazil, as jury chair for its newly launched creative commerce, use of data and B2B category. The announcement, made on 18 March, signals the awards’ intent to bring serious international muscle to a category that sits squarely at the intersection of creativity and commercial performance.
Ramalho is not a name that needs much introduction in global advertising circles. Over 25 years spanning three countries, he has worked at some of the industry’s most creatively restless addresses. At AKQA in San Francisco, he worked across McDonald’s, Nike, Fox, Target, Kraft Foods and GAP, and helped lead “The Lost Ring” for McDonald’s, one of the first alternate reality campaigns and among the most awarded projects of its era. He later moved to Organic in Toronto, bridging the Detroit and Toronto offices on Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler, before spending over a decade building CUBOCC into one of Brazil’s most iconic and innovative independent agencies, which subsequently joined the IPG network.
A stint at FCB followed, where Ramalho led integrated work bridging online and offline, before he joined R/GA São Paulo as vice-president and executive creative director, stitching together the São Paulo office with New York, London, Portland and California on global clients including Verizon, Google, Meta, Samsung, American Express and Heineken. He now heads Publicis Brazil as its chief creative officer.
His trophy cabinet includes Clios, Effies, TikTok awards and MMA Smarties, and he has served on juries at the Andys, TikTok and the Lisbon Awards.
The Abby Awards 2026 is scheduled to take place at Goafest 2026 on 20, 21 and 22 May in Goa.
For Indian advertising, landing a jury chair of Ramalho’s calibre for a category built around data-driven creativity and commerce is a statement of ambition. Goafest just raised its own bar.
