Prasanth Kumar named President of AAAI

Prasanth Kumar, CEO - South Asia of GroupM Media (India) Pvt Ltd was elected as the President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) for the year 2022-23 at its Annual General Body Meeting held today. 

Rana Barua, Group CEO of Havas Group India - was unanimously elected Vice-President of the Association. 

Other elected members of the Board in alphabetical order are: 

Vishandas Hardasani                 Matrix Publicities and Media India Pvt Ltd

Kunal Lalani                               Crayons Advertising Pvt Ltd

Rohan Mehta                             Kinnect Pvt Ltd

Chandramouli Muthu                Maitri Advertising Works Pvt Ltd, Cochin

Sridhar Ramasubramanian       Beehive Communications Pvt Ltd

Shashidhar Sinha                       Initiative Media India Pvt Ltd

K Srinivas                                    Sloka Advertising Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad

Vivek Srivastava                                Innocean Worldwide Communications Pvt Ltd 

Immediate Past President, Anupriya Acharya will be the ex-officio member of the AAAI Board for 2022-23.

On this occasion, Prasanth Kumar (fondly known as PK), President AAAI, said, “I’m extremely honoured to be elected President of this prestigious association. Advertising is, in my opinion, a dynamic and idea-driven industry. Collaboration with industry organizations will allow us to shape the industry in a progressive way that benefits everybody. I look forward to building synergies with like-minded people and organizations and I believe that we will be able to achieve our goals if we work together. As always, I expect lots of support from my peers and colleagues within AAAI as well as from the broader ecosystem as well." 

PK is a GroupM veteran with over 25 years of experience having worked across the industry. He has worked at Pepsi, The Hindu, The Media Edge & McCann Erickson before joining GroupM. He has also been Vice President of AAAI from 2020 – 2022. 

Outgoing President Anupriya Acharya stated, “It has been a privilege to hold the office of President and take on the responsibilities that come with it for the last two years. We transitioned AAAI from a Society to a Section 8 Company, returned with our key events as the nation moved out of covid restrictions, relaunched the iconic Goafest and Abbys in partnership with The One Show, refreshed the AAAI logo in step with the times. But most importantly, we furthered our agenda on inclusion as we partnered with UN Women backed Unstereotype Alliance and brought more digital agencies into the fold and continued strong partnerships with other industry bodies. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow Board members for giving their energy, expertise, and time when most needed. I would also like to congratulate Prasanth Kumar on his election as President. He has been a key member of the Indian media and advertising industry for a long time. I’m sure he will take the Association from strength to strength.” 

The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) is a not-for-profit, industry-led and industry-managed trade association of advertising agencies, formed in 1945, to promote their industry interests so that they continue to make an essential and ever-increasing contribution to the nation. The AAAI today is truly representative, with a very large number of small, medium and large-sized agencies as its members, who together account for almost 80% of the advertising business placed in the country.