Anand Damani, planning head, Saatchi & Saatchi, Mumbai has accepted the same position at Contract Advertising and will now report to Rohit Srivastava, executive vice-president, planning.
Srivastava who looks after the planning for Contract Advertising nationally was happy to have Damani on board, who he called “an eclectic combination of being rooted, and of carrying the right spark in the right manner”.
After completing his MBA Damani joined Publicis Ambience (then Ambience Publicis) as a part of the account management team and handled the Parachute (Marico) account the first year before moving on to Vicks (P&G), AFL WiZ and Be: (Raymond) the succeeding year.
Recalling his early years, he says, “Besides the usual brand building capabilities, what I learned most at Ambience Publicis was to be street smart.”
Damani then moved to L’Oreal India where he worked in sales as a business development officer, in charge of South-West Maharashtra and Goa for the first year and was later designated as the product manager for Garnier Nutrisse hair colour.
In 2004, Damani joined Lowe Lintas, where he was responsible for leading strategy in new business acquisitions of VIP undergarments, UTI Mutual Fund, Corelle crockery and Essar’s ‘The Mobile Store’, to name a few.
On turning 30 Damani switched to Saatchi & Saatchi to lead a team of three mid-level planners at the branch.