MAM
MEC India appoints Ajit Gurnani as head, West
MUMBAI: MEC India, a media and planning agency and founding partner of GroupM, has appointed Ajit Gurnani as head of MEC West.
The post-graduate from the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), Gurnani will be reporting to MEC India managing director T Gangadhar.
Speaking about the appointment, Gangadhar said, “Mumbai is our biggest office by far and I am pleased that we have found a quality leader like Ajit to head our operations here. Given his rich vein of experience, I have no doubt that Ajit will make valuable contributions – to clients and staff alike.”
Gurnani has more than 16 years of experience in the field of media and marketing. Prior to this, he was with Mindshare as principal partner, was a part of Jagran.com and Starcom Digital.
On his new role, Gurnani said, “I am excited about the opportunity and challenge that this assignment provides to me. I look forward to working with the team and help create business building work that wins accolades and recognition.”
MEC is a media agency whose services include media planning and buying, digital media, mobile, search, performance marketing and social media management, among others. The agency has a global headcount of 4,500 people with domestic and international clients across 84 countries.
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
