So, Quis Sum Ego eh. Who Am I?

You’ve probably read plenty of combinations and variations painted within the lines above. I am sure they all read the same, thanks to the low-entropy AI slop.

I think it will be a tragedy If I present you with the more of the templatised word soup. Let me take this opportunity to approach this from the left field. If nothing else, I hope to have fun writing this (and hopefully a conversation that may follow).

I quit my job in Singapore a few months ago. Three years flogging AdTech was enough. (Fascinating Tech, underwhelming brand effects). Yamini and Rudy had moved back to India in 2023; and I found myself at a place where the lack of meaningful challenges at work made turning up an emotional labour. The Quarterly Bonus was great, the itch to find a better purpose for myself was unbearable.

I had spent almost 12 years at MediaCom before DV; Running Large client operations (P&G, Coke); Stewarding the Agency Client relationship in markets ranging from Kenya on one hand to UK/Germany on the other. MediaCom allowed me to grow as a business leader and expected me to drive strategic planning across varied challenges.

I had stumbled into Marketing. A combination of one-part sheer disillusionment with my chosen field (MSc in BioChemistry) and one-part bad advice by well-meaning friends (why do you want to go to IIML, MICA has the best campus life).

After a short traineeship in GroupM Mumbai, and a hectic 2 years in Mediaturf/Interactive Avenues – I found myself heading marketing for a global online travel company for India.

At 26, I knew that mimicking the other Marketing heads I met wouldn’t work. Not for the inorganic growth that Travelocity needed, nor the lean and mean budgets I had to work with. I went off the reservation. I was the first ever marketer in the country to award above-the-line creative duties to a digital agency (2007). I was also pioneered large format internet-only video content, in 2008, working with Vir Das. I believe this was also a first use of standup comedy in Indian Advertising.

An empirical inventory of my animus would say that I am driven, strategic, analytical and a learner at heart, my own introspection has made me realise that I am inherently driven by curiosity and a desire for mastery.

Just as any solution is only as good as the problem it solves, I need bigger, better problems to enter the ‘flow’ state the eggheads talk about.