Bangalore, India – Independent creative agency Talented brought on ad leaders to join the team, ex SVP at Dentsu Webchutney, Priyanka Borah and ex managing partner at Dentsu Webchutney, Prashant Gopalakrishnan as Founding Partners to lead its business strategy.
In a statement, Prashant Gopalakrishnan, said, “We bought into Gautam & PG’s vision of building an agency centred around talent the moment we heard about it. My experience and my gut tells me that’s what clients expect from their creative agencies too: access to the best talent in the market.“
According to Gopalakrishnan, over the last few years, conversations in the industry have been circling around the looming irrelevance of agencies in the new marketing landscape. “All things considered, the agency experience itself is long overdue for a serious reimagination like Gautam often says. Talented is in many ways an experiment to bring back the love for the agency business, by trying to go about everything we do in a fresh way,” added Gopalakrishnan.
Gopalakrishnan joined Webchutney in 2015 after stints at Leo Burnett, Contract & Capital. He was named Dentsu Webchutney’s first ever Managing Partner in 2020 under then Webchutney CEO & now Talented co-founder Gautam Reghunath. “Together at Webchutney, we achieved a lot of things we never even dreamed of accomplishing. Personally, I’ve been wanting a new challenge. That, plus the chance to build something again with people we love makes this opportunity even more exciting,” Gopalakrishnan added.
About her new role, Priyanka Borah, says “Working with Gautam & PG at Webchutney was a rewarding experience. And joining them now as founding partner is as great a privilege, as it is a challenge. Prashant and I are here to ensure that the business itself becomes as successful as it can be. That means structuring ourselves internally to consistently deliver great work for clients. Simultaneously, we’ve got very clear ideas & share the same dream about the kind of company that we want to build together: one that stands for creativity, transparency and respect for talent. Stay true to those principles and I know the clients will follow.”
Borah joined Dentsu Webchutney in 2017 and was last leading the agency’s business team as Senior Vice President. During her five years there, she helped drive work for clients including Google, Uber, Airtel, ITC, YouTube amongst others.
“In the agency business today, there are systemic barriers to a sustainable work experience for employees that need to be eradicated, so that’s an additional area of focus. We want to be an ambitious, world-class, creative company with a big heart. We want every member to be able to enjoy stimulating challenges rather than spend their times chasing deadlines and following up – the biggest bane of our younger colleagues joining advertising. There is no doubt this search for efficiency will have a positive rub-off on work and client relationships as well,” added Borah.
