Media Expo Excellence Awards 2020

KS Chakravarthy, Co-founder, Tidal7

Chax ( KS Chakravarthy) has spent several decades as a creative leader in mainline advertising, with very successful stints as the Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett, Rediffusion Y&R and FCB Ulka. Along the way, he has mentored and groomed a veritable who-is-who of the industry, won every major international award many times over, and been on the global creative leadership councils of each of his agencies. He has also served on the biggest juries around the world, and chaired every category several times over in India. The brands he has stewarded and created long running, award winning campaigns for include Taj Mahal Tea, Iodex, Thums Up, Coke, Reebok, Bajaj Auto, Tata Sky, Airtel, Tata Docomo, Wipro Soaps, ITC Foods and Tata Salt. In between his advertising stints, he also run his own, extremely successful production house, Persistence of Vison, for several years, featuring in the Brand Equity Most Respected Directors list every single year. After overseeing the Digital part of his last few agencies, he finally chose to focus on the digital space when he co-founded Tidal7, a Brand Agency for the Digital Age, with clients that have included Tata Croma, Hero Motocorp, Corning International, Deepak Fertilizers, Reliance Retail, Times Internet, Hotstar and Cipla.

KV Sridhar a.k.a. Pops, Ad guru

KV Sridhar Aka Pops founded Hyper Collective as a cross disciplinary collaborative platform bringing Strategy, Creative and Technology together. Prior to starting his own venture, he was the Chief Creative Officer of Lowe Lintas, Leo Burnett and Sapient, in Global Leadership roles. He is widely respected as a global creative leader and has spent close to 42 years in Advertising. He has built many iconic brands such as Coca Cola, Thums Up, Limca, Bajaj Auto, McDonalds, LG, HDFC life, Unilever, P&G, Marico, Nestle, GM, Colors, Fiat, Fair & Lovely, Whisper, Tide, Jet Airways and many more. He has won a record 23 Cannes Lions, over 100 international and 300 Indian awards, honored with New York Festivals Creative Achievement Award in 2010. He was also inducted into the “Hall of Fame” of Asian Advertising and Marketing Legends by Campaign Asia. Conferred “Hall of Fame” by DMA Asia in 2019. Chosen as Nat Geo’s “Mega Icon” in 2018. He is a part of many awards juries including Cannes, One Show, D&AD, New York Festivals, London Festivals, AME, AdFest and A-Lister Hollywood Awards. Pops is also a TEDx speaker and deeply committed to the issues concerning the girl child, he has been working with UN and Population First for the past 15 years to influence the content creators to be sensitive on gender issues. He also authored the famous “30 Second Thrillers” on the stories behind the popular ads on TV last 40 years.

Ritesh Ghoshal, CMO, Croma - Infiniti Retail Ltd.

Ritesh is a student of human behaviour and its reflection in marketplace choices and the implications for products, propositions, brands and their communication. Over the last two decades, he has built a track record of creating new brands (Tata Docomo, Minute Maid), re-inventing legacy brands (Photon, Thumps Up, Maaza) and adapting global brands to Indian realities (Coke, Fanta, Sprite. As CMO at Croma, he is responsible for all aspects of demand generation – brand, communication, media, insights, customer lifecycle management. He also manages private label, institutional business and property for Croma. An alumnus of IIM Bangalore, Ritesh started his career in advertising and market research agencies before moving onto a marketing assignment at Reckitt Benckiser. Ever restless and seeking the thrill of a new challenge he has worked in 10 organizations across FMCG, Telecom and Retail. His two longest stints and most remarkable stints have been at Coca Cola India and Tata Docomo.

Rahul Puri, Editor-in-chief, Agency Reporter

Rahul Puri is currently the CEO and editor-in-chief of Agency Reporter. With more than 12 years of rich and diverse experience in trade media, Rahul is currently trying to create a difference in the way consumers consume advertising, media and marketing related news and communication, one step at a time. Before starting Agency Reporter, Rahul co-founded a very successful influencer marketing platform called Buzzoka and worked with publications like ScoopWhoop, YourStory and afaqs!.