Rajul Kulshreshta likely to head Group M’s Team LG out of Delhi

Even as Sai Nagesh prepares to exit as head of Group M, Team LG, exchange4media.com has learnt from reliable industry sources that Rajul Kulshrestha currently serving as Director-International Sales (Asia),CNBC, is close to taking over the post in Delhi. Kulshreshta, who joined CNBC in end-2003 after heading ZenithOptimedia, Indonesia, was not available to confirm that he would join GroupM but reliable sources said that moves are afoot to get Kulshreshta on board with the express purpose of getting the LG Electronics business moving. Group M, Team LG as the agency is referred to, has been on the look out for a senior person to provide day to day leadership on the account and guide the team in Delhi and Sai Nagesh was brought into Delhi to do the same. However Ashutosh Srivastava, Managing Director, MindShare South Asia, when contacted for information on this preferred not to comment as he was out of India for a regional meeting.

exchange4media.com had months back reported earlier that GroupM would set up a Mindshare Fulcrum-like media outfit dedicated to LG Electronics business. The outfit, called WPP Team LG, is based out of New Delhi. There has been intense speculation in the industry in the recent past that the media outfit had failed to get its act together thereby causing a certain degree of uneasiness between the client and the agency. Of course, senior officials at LG Electronics when asked about this sometime ago had out-rightly denied any such concerns, effectively putting an end to such speculation.

LG Electronics opted for WPP Team LG because, in the words of Anil Arora, Head of Marketing, LG Electronics India Ltd, "We saw great value in its ROI focus and its 'House of Media' based approach, which was fully aligned with our objective of creating huge and profitable growth for LG in the Indian market”. The media agency had envisaged to integrate media operations across 40 branch offices, 66 central area offices and 65 remote area offices, strong reasons for LG Electronics to go with the agency. It is perceived that Kulshreshta would indeed provide the necessary impetus for the agency’s LG Electronics business. For the record, Kulshreshta, prior to his stints with CNBC Asia and ZenithOptimedia, had worked with Universal McCann in India for almost eleven years. The coming days will tell how the big story unfolds.