Three senior level executives have moved out of Percept/ H recently. Iqbal Raj, NCD; Dilip Marathe, creative head; and Ajay Verma, senior VP and branch head, Mumbai, have all decided to move on.
Interestingly, all three of them had moved in from Rediffusion Y&R in mid-2008.
Raj had joined Percept/H in March 2008, eight months after its previous NCD Elvis Sequeira quit the agency. Raj came in from Rediffusion Y&R, where he was the ECD.
Raj has been a part of the advertising industry for more than two decades. He started his career with Lintas (now Lowe Lintas) in 1987. Later, he moved to FCB Ulka and then to Everest. Subsequently, he set up his own production house. Six years after that, he returned to advertising and joined Contract for two years before moving to Rediffusion Y&R. Over the years, Raj has worked on brands such as Wheel, Rin, Surf, Cadbury, HSBC and Disney Channel.
Talking about his exit from Percept/H, Raj said that he is taking a short break and evaluating his options. “If I miss advertising during this period, I will go back to advertising or I will do something else,” he smiles and says.
Prabhakar Mundkur, CEO, Percept/H says that Raj is very talented and he likes theatre and scripting, among other things, so it is most likely that he will end up doing multiple things together.
Marathe, who was the creative head at Rediff, had joined Percept/H in August 2008. At Rediffusion Y&R he spent around 13 years. In total, Marathe has almost two decades of experience in the advertising industry. He began his career with daCunha Communications, moving on to Grey Worldwide (then Trikaya Grey) in 1991 as senior visualiser. In 1994, he joined McCann Erickson as art director. After a year, he moved to Rediffusion Y&R as art director and then in 2001, he was appointed creative director of the agency.
Marathe says his stint with Percept/H was good and the agency managed to pick up quite a few awards in this period. He moved out of Percept/H to avail some other opportunities. He clarified that he does not have any plans to start his own venture, which has been a trend in the advertising industry of late.
Verma started his stint with Percept/H in January 2008. At Rediffusion Y&R, he was a business head. Verma has been in the advertising industry for nearly 16 years. After completing his Master’s degree in management studies from the University of Mumbai, Verma joined Draft FCB as a management trainee. He stayed with the agency for six years, eventually becoming the group manager in September 1999. Subsequently, he joined Rediffusion Y&R as account director. This was followed by a one year stint in Contract Advertising Mumbai as vice-president.
He moved back to Rediffusion Y&R again for a second stint as vice-president and stayed there for three years before moving out as business head. Verma has worked on brands such as HSBC, Cadbury, Tata Motors, Franklin Templeton, Tata Sky, Amul, Godrej, CEAT and HPCL.
Verma was not available for comment but a source close to the development says that he plans to start his own venture.