Arpita Menon to join ABP Group as National Head of ‘Strategic Unit and Business Intelligence’

The mystery surrounding the next destination for Arpita Menon is over – Menon has indeed moved out of the media agency business and would be joining the Ananda Bazaar Patrika Group for the newly set up function of ‘Strategic Unit and Business Intelligence’ as National Head. She takes on her new role from mid-January 2006 and would report to ABP’s President-Magazines and Group Chief Marketing Officer, Vikas Gupta.

Menon’s task at hand is to establish the Strategic Unit and Business Intelligence division for ABP. Replying as to why ABP and a change in the side, Menon said, “I wanted to do something different and yet stay in the media space. I’ve always been with a media agency and this was about crossing the line and working from the other side. As to why ABP, I wanted to work with a publication as publishing groups are getting more into different medias than say with a channel, that would still be restricted to viewership.”

As is known, ABP has presence in print with its dailies and magazine, in broadcast with STAR News, STAR Ananda, and the media entity has bought a stake in a cinema company and would be seen in the radio domain as well.

Hitherto, Menon was Vice-President, Lodestar Universal, where she worked for over 12 years. In her stint there, she had played a key role in various Lodestar initiatives like Labcentre, ImPress, Media Perfedia Involvement Index, Journeyman, and Lodestar Matrix, among others.

In Lodestar Universal, Menon was looking after clients like the Tatas, Amul and so on, which at present would be directly handled by Lodestar Universal’s CEO, Shashi Sinha, until a replacement is decided. Prior to Lodestar Universal, Menon had worked with agencies like HTA (now JWT), FCB Ulka and Chaitra Leo Burnett.

Also see:
Arpita Menon, VP, Lodestar Universal, puts in her papers