OOH those exits & entries of 2020

Year 2020 has been nothing less than a rollercoaster ride for the Indian OOH industry. Not only was the industry struggling to keep the business going, but there were also lot of senior level movements across the industry. 

Media4Growth lists down some senior level shuffling that took place this year in the OOH industry.

Nabendu Bhattacharya - An industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in the Indian OOH industry, Nabendu Bhattacharya decided to move on from his current role as CEO and MD of Milestone Brandcom. With this, his 6 year stint at Dentsu international, which acquired a major stake in Milestone Brandcom agency in 2014, ended. December 31st,  2020, will be his last day with the group. 

Sujit Banerjee- In October this year, the Director and CEO of Ecosys OOH, Sujit Banerjee, who was also the Founding Member announced his resignation. Sujit was associated with the agency from 2015. The agency grew multifold under his leadership and emerged as one of the fastest growing outfits with various reputed clients such as Audi, Renault, Fiat, Jeep, Acer, Ola and Jockey. In 2018, Publicis Media acquired Ecosys OOH to have a leadership position in the OOH industry. 

Charanjeet Arora- Co-CEO of Kinetic India, Charanjeet Arora, stepped down from his position in September 2020 aspart of a regular leadership shuffle at the agency level. Charanjeet had joined in November 2017 as Senior VP and was promoted as Co-CEO in 2018 along with Rachana Lokhande.Among other things, he was responsible for driving team transformations spanning media, office automation, and logistics. He has held multiple roles across organizations within the Indian media landscape. While currently on a sabbatical, Charanjeet is set to join the industry back in H1 of 2021, for as he stated, “I will always be a part of Outdoor Industry.” 

Fabian Cowan- Another industry veteran Fabian Cowan was elevated to the new role of Country Head, Posterscope India. In the new expanded role, Cowan is responsible for scaling up Posterscope’s business, nationwide and drive growth for the budding entities - Eunoia and Indeed Smart City. He joined Posterscope India in 2011, and boasts of an advertising career straddling over 26 years. 

Rachana Lokhande- Prior to Charanjeet Singh stepping down as Co-CEO of Kinetic India, Rachana Lokhande too stepped down from her position. A prominent industy personality, Rachana was promoted as the Co-CEO along with Charanjeet Singh Arora in 2018, replacing Suresh Balakrishna. Currently Rachana has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Indian Outdoor Advertising Association (IOAA). Her rich experience with a large agency should go a long way in bringing in the client’s perspective to the IOAA board’s discussion, besides helping improve OOH industry standards.

Ajay Gupta - Following the resignation of Rachana Lokhande, Ajay Gupta has been appointed as the new Managing Director of Kinetic Advertising India, a specialist OOH agency in June 2020. The Kinetic leadership team reports to Mehta, while he continues to be based out of Gurgaon and reports to Prasanth Kumar.

Jayesh Yagnik- In the very beginning of this year, Jayesh Yagnik was promoted as the CEO of MOMS Outdoor Media Solutions where he was serving on the capacity of COO earlier. Jayesh commands over 20 years of experience in the Indian OOH industry. He started his career with TDI International India and later moved to MOMS where he has handled different roles, starting from the managerial level to now the CEO. He has been a part of the MOMS from more than 17 years now.  Jayesh has played an instrumental part in the specialist agency’s growth while leading different teams, bagging various accounts’ mandates and ideating path-breaking campaigns for the clients. He has also been a speaker on OOH forums, contributing to the industry’s thought leadership.