MullenLowe Lintas Archives

Mumbai, India – FCB Interface, one of the creative agencies under the FCB Group in India, has announced a new chief strategy officer – ex-MullenLowe Lintas Aditi Patwardhan. The agency said the new appointment is part of its reorganisation towards becoming “future-ready” and “providing strategic partnership to its clients.”

Patwardhan is a brand and business builder with 25 years of solid marketing and advertising experience. She’s had stints in Leo Burnett, and was most recently an executive director at MullenLowe Lintas. She has partnered with global brands for multinationals like Unilever, P&G, Whisper, Fair & Lovely, Pureit, Knorr, Kissan & McDonald’s and her marketing stints include DCW Home Products, International Bestfoods, Dabur India and Mattel. Having been on both sides of the table, she is well versed in the intricacies of business and the pressures of P&L.

Speaking on the appointment, Robby Mathew, vice chairman and chief creative officer of FCB Interface, said, “With Aditi on board, I look forward to some scintillating work emanating from razor-sharp strategy.”

Adding, Joe Thaliath, vice chairman & CEO of FCB Interface, said, “Really excited to welcome Aditi onboard. Aditi is a strong believer and practitioner of media-agnostic solutions to real problems. Her well-rounded experience and expertise is indeed a perfect fit to lead the agency in its next phase of growth! We look forward to creating inspiring Never Finished brand building stories with Aditi at the helm.”

On joining the FCB family, Patwardhan said that the agency’s strong strategy fundamentals and client partnerships made for a natural fit, but that it’s the strong solutioning focus of the much awarded ideas like the ‘Punishing Signal’ that excites her the most, which are at the confluence of “human truths, problem-solving & technology.”

“I look forward to the mandate of taking the momentum to next level and sharpening the strategy offering. We are in process of building a powerhouse planning team which offers clients multidisciplinary competencies. Powered by the strong philosophy of Brand Bedrock and a suite of tools that have proven results within the network,” said Patwardhan.

The campaign ‘Punishing Signal’ is FCB Interface’s 2020 campaign with the Mumbai traffic police which aimed to address the problem of noise pollution on the city’s roads.

India – The Group Chief Strategy Officer of MullenLowe Lintas Group in India, S. Subramanyeswar (Subbu), has been elevated to now assume the same position for the whole APAC division of the company. Subbu will now take both roles as he continues to lead the strategy for brands at the India team.

Subbu joined Lowe Lintas in 2011 as a national planning director. Since then, he has led major strategic thoughts or shifts for multiple brands across the clients that the group works on in India. The most notable is his thought-leading and breakthrough ‘Brands to Stands’ philosophy, methodology and frameworks that have been adopted by many of the brands that the agency steers in India.

James Fox, the global chief strategy officer for the whole MullenLowe Group, is confident of the elevation, describing the new APAC CSO as one of the finest marketing minds in the region.

“He is a true leader for his team and his clients, helping them achieve new heights professionally and commercially. I am very proud to have Subbu as part of the global planning council, leading MullenLowe Group’s strategic charge across Asia Pacific countries,” said Fox.

Meanwhile, Virat Tandon, the group CEO of MullenLowe Lintas Group, shared that in the 10 years of having worked together, Subbu has played a huge role in not just improving and innovating the planning product, but also in forging strong partnerships with colleagues at the agency, clients and academia.

“Having worked very closely with him over the last 10 years, I have to say that he is clearly one of the top brand strategists in the world. I am extremely happy that Subbu will take his amazing brand of strategic planning beyond South Asia and into all of Asia Pacific,” commented Tandon.

Subbu has spent over two decades in advertising and marketing, having worked at Wipro, Publics, Rediffusion Y&R, and Saatchi & Saatchi in the markets of India, US, and UK. He has authored and won 131 awards at prestigious award-giving bodies such as India Effies, APAC Effies, Global Effies, as well as Asian Marketing Effectiveness, WARC, and the globally distinguished Jay Chiat by 4A’s. Aside from being on the receiving end, he has also been a jury of each of the mentioned organizations.

Subbu is also a regular columnist and passionate academic, being a visiting faculty at top business schools IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore in India and the renowned Kellogg School of Management, Illinois and MIT Sloan, Boston in the US.

On the new appointment, Subbu himself commented, “I’m honored, humbled and fired up. It’s a huge opportunity and that’s very exciting. At the same time, I’m also grounded on the challenges that lie ahead. And it is that trip and the constraint that also brings out the passion and fierce obsession in me, to do great culture-leading work. I’ll take the rich learning that I had in my ten years at MullenLowe Lintas Group – India, an ecosystem or the fulcrum of marketing, forward.”

Subbu will be based in Mumbai, India, as he takes up the Asia Pacific charge with immediate effect.

MullenLowe Lintas Group in India is among the largest country operations of the global MullenLowe Group that has agencies and presence in 65 markets. The India unit has two creative agencies under its management – Lowe Lintas and Mullen Lintas.