MUMBAI: Creative agency Mullen Lintas, which will officially launch on 1 August, 2015 has appointed Virat Tandon as its CEO.
Tandon will return to India after a three year stint with Mullen Lowe Group in Singapore where he was global business director for the Unilever brands Lifebuoy and Fair & Lovely.
A part of the network for over a decade, Tandon first joined Lowe Lintas at its New Delhi office in 2004 and has undertaken numerous senior and leadership roles in the agency. A Unilever veteran of over 10 brands and 60+ countries, he has worked in India on clients including Maruti Suzuki, Nestle, Dominos, Sony Audio and Dabur among others.
Prior to joining Lowe Lintas, he worked with WPP agencies Rediffusion, Grey and Contract.
Tandon said, “Mullen Lintas is born ahead of the curve and intends to remain a mash-up of the enduring and the emerging. Our founding team has the pedigree and the class of massive brand-successes under their belt. Big agencies are today, dealing with the new marketing landscape and adapting their offerings to it. Our advantage is that Mullen Lintas has no such baggage and that allows us to leap-frog this need to change and adapt. We understand that a great brand needs a great narrative that flows seamlessly through screens, experiences, shopping environments and conversations. We will equip ourselves to play a pivotal role for our brands.”
Also joining the Mullen Lintas leadership team is Shriram Iyer, who takes on the role of national creative director.
Iyer said, “A great ambition for the agency and a wonderful team to work with, I am excited about what we can create. Our approach to enriching our capabilities is what we call ‘core plus one’. While we continue to practice our core skill sets, we will commit ourselves to adding people who bring with them a +1 skill or area of expertise. We believe this is critical and makes us ‘present ready’.”
Currently ECD and creative head for the Delhi offices of Lowe Lintas, Iyer moves to Mumbai in this new role. He has been with the group since 1998 and has played various roles in the creative team at Lowe Lintas’ Mumbai and Delhi offices.
Headquartered in Mumbai, the new agency will have offices in New Delhi (NCR) and Bengaluru.
Mullen Lowe Lintas Group group CEO Joseph George said, “India has birthed several big brands over the last two decades. However, for a long time, the top agency brands have remained largely unchanged. Mullen Lintas is a product of the evolving marketing landscape, and with our “big agency” ambition, we intend to partner brands whose ambitions are driven by a passionate pursuit of leadership by presenting ourselves as a compelling challenger to the likes of Lowe Lintas, Ogilvy and JWT.”
Mullen Lintas chairman and CCO Amer Jaleel concluded, “Virat has been a great business partner to me in managing the global mandate on Lifebuoy, and Shriram has been a driving force behind what Lowe Lintas Delhi has achieved in the past few years. I thoroughly enjoy working with both of them and couldn’t have asked for better friends to the start the Mullen Lintas journey with.”
