Aegis Installs New Management in India

Aegis is banking on a fresh swathe of senior management in India to bed in its international disciplines and tools, and bring stability to media operations unsettled by a series of senior departures.

A major reshuffle at its media buying company Carat India sees PV Narayanmoorthy, director of operations and strategy, elevated to MD. A former regional director with Carat, Narayanmoorthy, familiarly known as Moorthy, has spent the last 12 months rolling out the company’s new communications planning approach in India.

Meanwhile former group CEO Charles Berley Jenarius has moved to a new role seeking out possible acquisitions and start-ups to build up Aegis Media’s offer in India.

Finding a CEO to run Aegis Media’s operations in India is the responsibility of Aegis Media’s Asia South CEO, Richard Halmarick. Already responsible for several markets in Southeast Asia, Halmarick now adds India to his remit, and will play a hands-on role pending the appointment of the new CEO, who will come from outside the company Further management changes see Radhesh Uchil, former COO with Bates PanGulf Group in Dubai, bought on board as GM for Carat India, West and South, replacing Pradeep Iyengar, who left in April, while Moorthy also takes charge of Carat India North and East, following the recent departure of NP Sathyamurthy.

Aegis Media has an eye on diversifying its services in India, introducing for example its digital network Isobar and reviving specialist out-of-home business Posterscope, which it had run in India with former partner Percept until the two companies parted ways last year. The primary priority however is to build business, Halmarick stresses, both with new and existing clients. “Over the last few years the Carat business could have been stronger,” he says. “What we want to do is get our product back to where it was. That comes from changing people.”