MAM
Salt Brand Solutions promotes Siddhartha Singh as CEO, Arun Divakar as NCD
MUMBAI: Salt Brand Solutions has rejigged its top management. The company has promoted Siddhartha Singh as CEO and Arun Divakar as national creative director (NCD).
Singh is one of the founder members of Salt and till now was executive vice president (EVP). He has almost two decades of experience across agencies like Leo Burnett, Ambience Publicis and Rediffusion – Y&R.
Singh said, “I plan to up the ante on product delivery, ensuring it is above industry standard and pushes the agenda of being best new-age business partners to our clients. This is something we have practiced for the last four years and today feel confident and capable of delivering. In addition, I want to instil brand thinking that cuts through the jargon, brings in simplicity and germinates from a client’s business problem rather than lofty brand ideologies.”
On the other end of the spectrum is Divakar, who will now be responsible for the complete creative portfolio of Salt. “I want to create an environment where people contribute and come up with ideas fearlessly and frequently in a manner that is fun, for I believe that Happy People create Happy Work and that is something that we want to stand for,” he said.
Divakar started his career as an account executive, but quickly realised he was a better art director than the ones he was listening to! He has worked with Flagship and Saatchi & Saatchi in Mumbai, and Classic Partnership, O&M, Y&R and TBWA in the U.A.E, before taking on the role of regional creative director, Pirana which he helped set up in the U.A.E. In 2014 he moved back to India and joined Salt Brand Solutions.
Defining the road ahead, Salt Brand Solutions founder Mahesh Chauhan added, “Divakar has been the proverbial madman of Salt. His talent coupled with his joie de vivre has transformed our work and culture beautifully. Sid, on the other hand, has been a pillar over the past four years of Salt and has seamlessly transitioned into this role. He is widely respected and brings great gravitas to our offering as an organisation.”
“With these elevations, I will now be spending my time driving ideas for our clients. This will involve working seamlessly with both the strategy and creative teams. The end objective being consistently superior work for all our partners as well as properties that we develop for ourselves,” he added.
MAM
Sameer Nair shares heartfelt note as he exits Applause Entertainment
After nine years building the streamer’s content engine, one of India’s best-known TV men is moving on
MUMBAI: Sameer Nair is out. The chief executive of Applause Entertainment, the content studio backed by Kumar Mangalam Birla’s media empire, has announced his departure after nearly nine years at the helm, closing the chapter on one of Indian entertainment’s more quietly consequential careers.
Nair, who built Applause from the ground up in its current avatar, oversaw a slate that spanned Indian originals and international adaptations, threading together a hub-and-spoke business model that partnered with streaming platforms, broadcasters and production houses alike. The results were uneven, as they always are in content, but the ambition was not.
In a post on LinkedIn, Nair was generous to his outgoing patron. He thanked Birla for being an “inspirational boss and a great patron of the arts,” and signed off with a cheerful “Au Revoir” and a promise to remain Applause’s biggest cheerleader. Whether that sentiment survives the next chapter remains to be seen.
No successor has been named. Applause Entertainment did not immediately comment.
Nair built the machine. Now someone else has to run it — and in a streaming market that is simultaneously consolidating and convulsing, that is no small ask.
