Exchange4Media: After quitting Percept Talent Management (PTM) as CEO in January 2010, Manish Porwal has now taken up the position of Managing Director and promoter, at Alchemist, an HR and talent solutions company and also bought a controlling stake in the company. Prior to PTM, Porwal was with Starcom Worldwide for nearly five years, where he was Managing Director, West and South.
Commenting on his new role, Porwal said, “The huge role of people in our industry and the ironic lack of investment in them always boggled me. Where my MNC jobs gave me respect for processes and roles in an organisation, Percept prepared me in relating with the power of individuals, the needs of top end celeb talent and for thinking like an entrepreneur. Bringing these learnings together, I am determined to make Alchemist the leader in talent solutions in the entertainment, media and communication industry.”
Elaborating on the strategies he planned to adopt, Porwal said, “We shall start with value adding in the verticals of MARS [Marketing, Advertising (Creative and media), Research and Ad-Sales]. Alchemist will also allow me the width to look at other avenues that I have also wanted to be a part of.”
Anujita Jain, Founder and COO of Alchemist, expressed her happiness to have Porwal onboard saying, “The team at Alchemist is glad that we now have a leader and strategic driver to give shape to our dreams. We are already excelling in the area of executive search and vocational education and training, and given Porwal’s ability to incubate and execute big plans, we would be talking bigger scale and scope.”
Alchemist is a 20-month old organisation that has worked closely with various service companies like ING Vysya Life, Heinz, Reliance Big, ZenithOptimedia, Dainik Bhaskar, DNA, Starcom Thailand, and Live, among others, for fulfilling their talent needs.