MAM
Percept launches CRM division
MUMBAI: Percept Advertising has launched a new division – Percept Customer Lifecycle Management (PCLM).
Harsh Vardhan will be heading PCLM, which will have customer relationship management (CRM), direct marketing, database storage mining and database storage analysis under its ambit.
PCLM is one of the initiatives that Percept Advertising CEO Rajesh Pant has undertaken in the continuing makeover of the business he has been instituting since taking charge eight months ago.
According to the former Sony Entertainment Number 2: “Today nobody is looking for ad agencies, they are looking for complete solution providers.”
To further his stated aim of taking Percept into the Top Ten in the next five years, Pant has just hired Elvis Sequiera from Lowe India as his new national creative director. In the recent past, among Sequiera’s noted campaigns are the ones he did for Bajaj and ICICI, Pant says.
Pant says that both in the south as well as in the north, Percept has been adding to its business. NEC Micron in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Power Corporation and the Ambition motorcycle account in Delhi among them he says.
On the company structure side as well, there have been significant developments. Percept concluded a deal two weeks ago wherein its JV with Hakuhodo, Japan’s second largest agency and the ninth largest in the world, was expanded. It is now a 50 per cent equity partner in all of Percept’s agency business under the Hakuhodo-Percept name. These include Percept Advertising, Image Ads, AMO Communications and Percept Gulf, Pant said.
Hakuhodo-Percept was in the news in September when it clinched the estimated Rs 120-150 million advertising accounts of Maruti’s flagship brand Maruti 800 and Zen from Rediffusion DY&R, Delhi. The “Japanese connection” has helped in getting the Epsom and Sharp accounts as well.
See related headline:
Rajesh Pant takes charge as Percept CEO
MAM
WPP appoints Estée Lauder’s Anne-Isabelle Choueiri as chief transformation officer
Former Estée Lauder executive to lead operations, technology and culture overhaul under WPP’s three-year growth plan
LONDON: WPP has appointed Anne-Isabelle Choueiri as chief transformation officer in a newly created role tasked with delivering the group’s Elevate28 strategy.
Choueiri joins from The Estée Lauder Companies, where she led enterprise-wide strategic initiatives, including the “One ELC” operating model and major upgrades to enterprise marketing, data and analytics capabilities. She also led the redesign of enterprise technology teams and served on the company’s AI taskforce, driving AI strategy, adoption and value realisation across the business.
At WPP, she will be responsible for designing, implementing and embedding the operating model behind Elevate28, the company’s three-year growth plan unveiled in February 2026. She will lead efforts to improve innovation, efficiency and integration across WPP’s client offerings, with a focus on delivering agile, outcome-driven solutions and measurable growth.
Choueiri will oversee organisational transformation across the group, working closely with product and enterprise technology teams to deploy AI, data and technology to build new capabilities and improve operational performance. She will also work with the people function to embed cultural change, strengthen an agile performance mindset and support talent development across the organisation.
Before joining Estée Lauder, she held senior roles across consulting and digital agencies, including at Accenture, Masaï (a Bain & Company spin-off), and Kearney, with experience spanning strategy, data and digital marketing transformation.
Cindy Rose, chief executive officer of WPP, said Choueiri brings a strong track record of leading large-scale transformation across operations, technology and culture, adding that her appointment will help accelerate the group’s next phase of growth under Elevate28.
Choueiri said WPP’s strategy represents an ambitious opportunity to reshape how the company operates and delivers for clients, adding that she looks forward to building integrated solutions and fostering a culture of innovation and change.
She will be based in New York and will join WPP’s executive committee.
