Meet The Headliners
Bob Hoffman
Chief Aggravation Officer, Type A Group
Bob is the author of five Amazon #1 selling books about advertising and creator of the popular “Ad Contrarian” blog and newsletter. He is also one of the most sought-after international speakers on advertising and marketing. Bob has been the CEO of two independent agencies and the U.S. operation of an international agency.
Dave Trott
Creative Director, Copywriter and Author
Living ad legend Dave Trott has written 4 books on creativity: ‘Creative Mischief’, ‘Predatory Thinking’, ‘1+1=3’ & ‘Creative Blindness – and how to cure it’. In the 1970s, he set up the ‘D&AD Creative Workshop’ course to train young copywriters and ADs, which ran for thirty years. Dave trained hundreds of London’s young creatives, many of these are now top creative directors.
Piyush Pandey
Chief Creative Officer (Worldwide), Executive Chairman (India), Ogilvy
He has been with Ogilvy for over 38 years, and in his current role since January 2019. He started as an account executive and moved to creative in 1988. In 2016, he became the first ‘pure’ advertising person to be honoured with the national civilian award ‘Padma Shri’. He was the first Asian to chair the Cannes Jury in 2004. He believes advertising must talk to the hearts of people and the best reward of good work is when people on the streets it is aimed at, talk about it. His work has won over 1,000 awards nationally and internationally.
Sir Martin Sorrell
Founder & Executive Chairman, S4 Capital
Sir Martin Sorrell is Founder and Executive Chairman of S4 Capital plc, which is building a new age/ new era, purely digital advertising and marketing services business for global, multinational, regional, local clients and millennial-driven influencer brands.
Sam Balsara
Chairman, Madison World
Sam Balsara, has over 45 years experience in marketing and advertising. The Economic Times Brand Equity Ad Agency Reckoner ranks Sam as ‘India’s Most Influential Media Person” for 11 years. Sam is currently the head of the completely Indian owned Madison World, which offers services in 11 specialised functions in Advertising, Media, Business Analytics, Out-of-Home, PR, Retail, Rural, Activation, Entertainment and Sports.
Santosh Desai
MD & CEO, Future Brands Ltd
Author, Columnist, Social Commentator
Santosh is the Managing Director and CEO of Future Brands Ltd. Future Brands is a branding services company that creates and manages a portfolio of brands and offers consulting services in the brand and consumer space. Before taking up this assignment, he was the President of McCann-Erickson, one of India’s premier advertising agencies.
Sue Unerman
Chief Transformation Officer, Mediacom
In a world that is changing faster than any of us can quite get used to, business needs people who can not only see the next change coming, but can also explain it to the rest of us. Sue is one of these rare people. She’s a “clarifier”. Editor in chief at Campaign, Gideon Spanier, says: “Sue has led the way when it comes to driving change and challenging stereotypes” In her current role she drives transformation for MediaCom and their clients.
Susan Credle
CCO, FCB Global
Susan Credle is a creative powerhouse with a strong moral compass that drives her quest to infuse the industry with diversity. As the first female chairperson of The One Club for Creativity, Credle champions rising creative talent and advocates for industry inclusion. Prior to joining FCB, Credle spent twenty-plus years at BBDO and was previously CCO of Leo Burnett USA. Upon arriving at FCB in 2016, she reignited the network by pushing for better work.
Meet The Keynote Speakers & Panelists
Ananya Mukherjee
Fashion Content Creator
Ananya Mukherjee is a 21 years old graduate with a degree in English and Political Science from Ashoka University. Since then, she has shifted her focus to growing on Instagram as a fashion content creator (without ever leaving her house), and is currently at 103,000 followers. Navigating life post online graduation has been tricky, and shifting relationships from real life to virtual has been trickier. She hopes that through the next few years she will have opportunities to explore her different interests and find something she loves.
Anil Viswanathan
Senior Director - Marketing, Mondelez India Foods Pvt. Ltd
Anil Viswanathan is Senior Director – Marketing at Mondelez India Foods Private Ltd. Anil is part of India BU Leadership Team and as the head of the Integrated Marketing Organization, is responsible to drive a consolidated Snacking strategy with holistic management of all marketing levers, that includes Insights, Analytics, Equity, Innovation and Activation, in line with Mondelez Internationals "Local first, but not Local only" approach to business.
Binaifer Dulani
Creative Director, Dentsu Webchutney
Binaifer Dulani is one of Dentsu Webchutney's fastest growing Creative Directors and core part of Indian Creative Women team. She is a recipient of Impact's Top 30 under 30 award. She leads brands such as Google, Uber and Tanishq, amongst several other upstarts. Her work has been featured as part of World Bank's Digital2Equal initiative, amongst 17 global case studies. Binaifer is also a passionate lecturer and wants to build an inclusive industry where there's space for every individual.
Bridget Angear
Founding Partner, craig+bridget
Until January 2021, Bridget was Joint Chief Strategy Officer at AMVBBDO running the agency’s strategic output, in partnership with Craig Mawdsley. Bridget has been voted London’s #1 strategist 6 times in the last 8 years, winning Cannes Effectiveness Grand Prix’s, IPA Effectiveness Network of the year 2016 and APG Creative Strategy Agency of the year, and most recently steering Libresse/Bobyform to multiple award winning campaigns.
Fredrik Härén
The Creativity Explorer
Fredrik Härén has dedicated the last 25 years to helping people discover their full creative potential. He is The Creativity Explorer. Fredrik speaks on business creativity, idea generation and global business. Fredrik is the author of ten books, including “The Idea Book” which was included in “The 100 Best Business Books of All Time”.
Gabriela Scardaccione
GCD, Mother Family
Gabriela has been part of Mother for as long as one can remember. She currently resides in London - her favourite place in the world- working alongside the Mother Family partners, making sure she spreads Mother’s vision for the years to come.
Gowthaman Ragothaman
Founder & CEO, Aqilliz
A 30-year media, ad and marketing professional, Gowthaman Ragothaman, also known as G’man, is now leading a team of industry experts across marketing, data, insights, security and technology in setting up Aqilliz, the first of its kind blockchain solutions company for the marketing industry.
Helen Bazuaye
Creative Content Director, Brand & Editorial
Consultant, Inclusion & Diversity Specialist
Founder, Creative Grace Ltd
Helen Bazuaye is an award-winning creative content director with 20 years of experience in producing consumer and branded content for national publications and global brands. As global editor-in-chief of IKEA’s customer loyalty title, she led a talented team of creatives, taking the title from a print-only quarterly to a successful multi-channel offering in 33 markets.
Joakim Borgström
Worldwide CCO, BBH & CCO, BBH London
Jab is the Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of BBH and Chief Creative Officer of BBH London. He has a strong belief in the power of technology to unleash creativity and spent five years at the helm of BBH Singapore producing standout work for Global clients such as Absolut, IKEA and Nike. Under his tenure, the agency was named AdAge’s International Agency of the Year. Originally from Sweden - with Swedish and Argentinean heritage - Jab has worked in five different countries and speaks as many languages.
Kerry Thorpe
Head of Integrated Communications, Ben & Jerry’s, London
Kerry joined the tasty world of Ben & Jerry’s six years ago and is responsible for the development of the company’s communication strategies, goals and procedures in five key markets in Europe: Germany, France, the Nordics, Benelux and the UK. Kerry’s role requires more than tickling taste-buds with flavour news.
Mark Adams
SVP Innovation, VICE Media
Serial entrepreneur and award winning global thought leader on content strategy. Sitting at the intersection of technology, entertainment and brand building. Working directly with A-list celebs and the C-suite of the world’s largest companies to lead content and digital transformation. Driven by the mission to democratise digital knowledge and keep the new economy fair by ‘bridging the digital divide’ in society.
Mark Schaefer
Executive Director, Schaefer Marketing Solutions
Mark W. Schaefer is a globally-recognized author, speaker, podcaster, and business consultant who blogs at {grow} — one of the top five marketing blogs of the world. He teaches graduate marketing classes at Rutgers University and has written eight best-selling books. Mark’s new book Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for Your Ideas, Business and Life Against All Odds is an essential new path to being seen and heard in a busy world.
Molly Baker
CEO & Founder, Indie Consulting
Molly started Indie Consulting 2 years ago with a goal to create a new age marketing consultancy focused on executing empathetic & data driven marketing strategies to create impactful relationships with both consumers and clients alike. Molly has a team of consultants across the globe with unique perspectives and backgrounds who service a variety of brands, assisting with digitally led marketing strategy, execution and optimisation.
Nancy Xu
Virtual Production Producer, Epic Games Innovation Lab
Nancy Xu is a virtual production producer at Epic's London Innovation Lab, with a focus on empowering filmmakers to tell their stories using real-time technology. Prior to virtual production, Nancy worked in visual effects on shows such as The Lion King, Jungle Book and Alien Covenant.
Nivedeeta Moirangthem
Country Communications Manager, IKEA India
In her 20 years in IKEA, she has worked with the IKEA Foundation, Sustainability, IKEA. Purchasing and Retail in areas of external and internal communication. Nivedeeta was part of the start up team to set up retail operations in India and has been deeply involved in the ongoing transformation for IKEA. She believes that communication can be a powerful change and is key to the long-term success for any brand.
Prof. Paul X McCarthy
CEO and Co-founder, Online Gravity
Author and technology entrepreneur
Adjunct Professor of Computer Science, UNSW Sydney
Professor McCarthy is a CEO, computational social science research leader and author. His bestselling book Online Gravity explains how technology is rebooting economics worldwide and is now published in English, Chinese and Russian.
Prasoon Pandey
Director, Corcoise Films
Prasoon Pandey was born into a large family, which revered the creative process. Growing up in an environment of theatre, music, painting, dance and literature, it was a natural choice for him to hone his creative talents at the National Institute of Design. His advertising career began at Lintas (now Lowe). Thereafter has been a most prolific career in film-making and perhaps an even more stunning collection of awards: Cannes Lions, Clios, New York festivals, Asia Pacific Adfest and tons of Abbys including the award for ‘The Indian Commercial of the Century’, to name just a few.
Punit Misra
President-Content & International Business, Zee
Punit Misra is the President – Content and International Markets at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL). Punit oversees content for both the TV network of ZEE as well as its digital offering ZEE5, both domestically and globally. He also manages ZEEL’s international business spanning 190 countries. He is also on the Board of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the industry body for broadcasters.
Rachel Mercer
Co-Founder & CXO, Proto
With a foundation in creative technology and design, Rachel is an award-winning design and strategy leader that has spent over a decade both working in and leading multidisciplinary teams to create groundbreaking new products, services, and experiences which transform businesses relationships with customers.
Dr. Rebecca Swift
Global Head - Creative Insights, Getty Images
Rebecca joined the photography industry over 20 years ago and was one of the founding members of the creative research team at Getty Images, introducing visual research methodology to the industry. Today, Rebecca leads the Creative Research and Planning team who set the content strategy for Getty Images, through researching and analysing trends in visual communication.
Rhea Gandhi
Psychotherapist and Counsellor, Chairperson, Indian Chapter of the International Attachment Network
Rhea Gandhi is a psychotherapist, qualitative researcher and Chairperson of the Indian Chapter of the International Attachment Network. She is a queer affirmative practitioner and visiting faculty at St. Xavier's College's Postgraduate Department of Psychology.
Richard Holman
Writer | Speaker | Coach
After twenty years of coming up with original ideas, mostly in design, branding & advertising, Richard now devotes his time to helping others have better ideas themselves. Richard writes articles and books, speaks at conferences, runs workshops, podcasts, and, from time to time, he has odd ideas too.
Sakshi Choudhary
Creative Director, Ogilvy
Sakshi has spent more than a decade in the industry creating work that attacks status quo, especially culture. Her campaigns have confronted sexist music, homophobia, sexual harassment, old ideals of beauty, and have won all major awards in the industry. She is also the founder of Indian Creative Women. Sakshi is a Cannes Lions See It Be It Alumnus, a One Club Next Creative Leader, Pitch Magazine’s Superperson and Campaign Asia’s Woman to Watch. She is currently a Creative Director at Ogilvy Chicago.
Sameer Nair
CEO, Applause Entertainment
With an experience of three decades spanning across media and entertainment, industry veteran Sameer Nair has held prominent positions at leading media organisations. In 2017, Sameer took over Applause Entertainment - a Content & IP Creation Studio –a venture of Aditya Birla Group, India’s leading multinational conglomerate as its Chief Executive Officer. With Applause Entertainment, Sameer aims to build a new ecosystem for premium content creation & monetization bringing together talent, producers and platforms.
Samyu Murali
Art Director, Ogilvy
Samyu is an Art Director and Designer based in India. She’s had experience working in creative agencies in Atlanta, Austin and Mumbai. She was one of The Drum’s 50 under 30 women in digital in the U.S, an ADCOLOR Future and selected to be a part of Cannes Young Creative Academy. She’s currently an Art Director at Ogilvy Mumbai and part of the core team at Indian Creative Women. She’s passionate about creating a positive change in the industry through design and inclusivity.
Shikha Gupta
Creative Director, Swiggy
Shikha is the head of Swiggy's in-house creative studio and an ex-advertising writer. She was in advertising for close to 8 years, where she sold everything from trucks to body lotion. In 2015, she decided to move to the brand side and made the switch with Urban Ladder. She's since tried to bring all that she loves about advertising to in-house creative teams.
Sneha Iype
Executive Producer, Partner, Nirvana Films
Sneha Iype currently serves as the Executive Producer and Partner as Nirvana Films. As one half of the Director - Producer duo that founded 'Nirvana Films' in 2001, Sneha has produced over 500 films this far.
Swati Bhattacharya
Creative Chairperson, FCB India
Swati’s work is an ode to the joys and tragedies of life, and the myriad roles that brands play in inspiring us to rise above and embrace the best versions of ourselves. This is driven by belief. The belief that peoples and brands are one – a singularity purposed to inspire in the present, a sense of conviction to be a part of the enduring human story, and in the future to forge their own trails with the brands they love. This belief echoes in her campaigns. Her campaigns are not just marketing platforms but edifices to human stories that inspire and encourage us to pay it forward.
Tom Goodwin
Founder, All We Have Is Now
A sought-after writer, keynote speaker and consultant, Tom Goodwin has built a 20-year career spanning advertising/creative, digital, and media agencies, and currently advises a range of Fortune 500 companies on business transformation for the post-digital age. An industry provocateur, he has been voted as the #1 Voice in Marketing on LinkedIn globally, with over 700,000 followers.
Tom Roach
VP Brand Planning, Jellyfish
Tom has two decades of experience in some of the world’s best communications agencies and is one of the most awarded advertising strategists in the world, with multiple Gold IPA Effectiveness awards to his name. With an industry-wide reputation for championing the commercial impact of marketing communication and the value of creativity, his thought leadership is widely read and shared across the marketing world.
Vikram Kalra
Co-founder & Executive Producer, Good Morning Films
Vikram Kalra is the Co-founder & Executive producer of Good Morning Films, a creatively driven production company founded in 2004. A journey that started with creating award-winning documentaries and continued with producing award-winning TV commercials, Vikram continues to push the creative envelope with Original and Branded Content for clients in the Asia-Pacific region.
More speakers to be announced soon.
Harshada Menon
Group Creative Director, DDB Mudra Group
Harshada Menon is a Group Creative Director at DDB India. In 2018, she was one of the 20 women across the world, chosen for the Cannes Lions See It Be It program. She was also on the jury for the first ever Gerety Awards, awards judged by women creative leaders across the world. With an experience of over 14 years, Harshada's work has won recognition, nationally and internationally.
Shormistha Mukherjee
Co-founder, Flying Cursor Interactive
Shormistha is the Director and Co-Founder of Flying Cursor Interactive. Flying Cursor, they help brands find their purpose, and then connect that purpose to a human truth, to forge meaningful and rewarding relationships with consumers. With a team of over 45 cross functional specialists, who excel in telling compelling stories in all forms, Flying Cursor is an award winning, full service, digital communication agency, that does cutting edge brand work on digital, through human insights and platform knowledge.
Suresh Venkat
Journalist, Anchor, Actor and Content Designer
Suresh Venkat is a journalist, anchor, actor and content designer. After graduating from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Suresh has worked with Star TV, Radio City and CNBC TV18. With over 25 years of media experience, Suresh is known for his contrarian views, his breadth of abilities and his irreverent take on business. Apart from that, Suresh is a visiting professor of media studies at Sophia College, Mumbai and is a film and theatre actor.