Archana Jain

Archana has been practicing PR since 1990.

In the last 23 years, she has had the opportunity to assist organisations shape their reputation – nurturing and protecting it. She has advised on corporate and brand communications; helped clients project their knowledge; managed the communication challenges of downsizing, mergers & restructuring; guided communications with sensitive communities and pressure groups; and supported the successful introduction of many new products, ventures, ideas & services.

Archana set up PR Pundit in 1998. Today, PR Pundit is a well-regarded consumer & lifestyle public relations company. The company continues to be steered by Archana to offer a value proposition of creativity, efficiency and innovation.

She actively lends her multiple stakeholder communication experience across diverse industry sectors to PR Pundit. She is the principal trainer for PR Pundit’s media training and crisis communications programmes.

Archana holds a Master’s degree in Business Economics from the Delhi University.

PK Khurana

P.K. Khurana – a seasoned journalist, media manager, prolific writer and a multi-faceted entrepreneur, was heading a distinguished team of experts from across the country as the Marketing Director of a leading Hindi daily, before he decided to hang his journalistic boots and tread the untrodden path.

He was also the first Editor of samachar4media.com, India’s largest Hindi website on the media industry, at the time of its launch in 2010. He contributes regularly to various newspapers and magazines and some of the premier dailies carry his weekly columns.

Armed with a vast repertoire of experience and expertise in diverse fields of journalism, communication, circulation, advertising, public relations, marketing and sales, Mr Khurana single-handedly set up QuikRealtions in 1999, which was later converted to a private limited company.

Public Relations industry in the region was still far from the nascent stage and Mr Khurana inadvertently became its Founder Father – showing the way to many, guiding, mentoring, and motivating even his upcoming rivals, leading his own enterprise from the front and ensuring absolute client satisfaction. Amid the frenzied activity, expansion and diversification plans were silently being executed in his mind.

In his sincere endeavours as a PR professional, Mr Khurana continues to be constantly guided and helped by his years of experience with the biggest and the most prestigious names in print journalism, including The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Dainik Jagran, Punjab Kesari, Jagbani, Hind Samachar and Divya Himachal.

His name today is the hallmark of excellence and commitment in the fields of issue management, corporate communications, strategy planning and political PR - a legacy he has gracefully carried forward and handed down to QRPL team.

Within a short span of time, Mr Khurana, with his expert guidance and mentoring, has taken the company from a single man organization to a team of over 80 media and marketing professionals. From a standalone PR Agency, QRPL is now a part of the Quik Group of Companies having its own events, advertising and digital arm.

Mr Khurana is widely known for innovating “now” standard approaches in the field of Public Relations.

Shravani Dang

A specialist in Corporate Communications, Shravani has a record of success in fast paced companies across multilocation, multistate and global environments. Years of progressively responsible experience has enabled her to hone this function into a force multiplier to deliver effective, actionable and culturally appropriate global communication solutions. Conferred Excellence Award at Asian Multimedia Publishing Award 2009 for Innovative Corporate Communications. Experienced in Indian and international IPO communications.

Shravani Dang is Vice- President and Group Head -Corporate Communications with global oversight for Avantha. At Avantha, Shravani reports to the Chairman and is a member of the Top Leadership Team. She strategically and operationally leads the function across 14 entities, group companies and their business verticals and non-group entities. Member of the distinguished Forum for Women in Leadership (WILL), WILL Mentoring Council in India and Member of the WILL Governing Board. Shravani is a WILL awardee as well.

Previously, she was Head and Director of Corporate Communications for the mutual fund giant Fidelity in India. At Fidelity, she was a key member of the Fidelity India Management Team and formulated and executed the organization’s India communications strategy.  

As Country General Manager of Corporate Communications with the US software services giant Computer Sciences Corporation Shravani held India-wide responsibility for all internal and external communications including research, strategic marketing, advertising, media relations, CSR and brand building for India. Shravani’s accomplishments while at CSC includes, managing the task force created to address gender issues within the organization and “out-of-the-box/unique” initiatives for attracting women work force to the organization. Her role is instrumental in raising the brand image and visibility for CSC- from barely there to 75% and 85%, as per an IDC survey. She successfully built the CSC brand in India and helped in the marketing communications for successful bids for customers like Zurich Financials, Renault among others.

In CARE she was part of an international team assessing the flood situation in Assam and was involved with the Elton John AIDS awareness project, the girl child education and micro-finance, primary education, rain water harvesting, among others and was functionally involved with CARE UK, USA and SAARC.
Shravani stepped into the corporate world with HCL’s corporate communications department where she went to head the Department. She was also instrumental in setting up a company sponsorship programme for popularizing classical Indian music and dance through free and open to public concerts that run till today.

Shravani has had a brief stint as Faculty in Delhi University where she taught Mass Communications. A prolific writer, she has over 1000 published contributions in national dailies such as "The Economic Times", "The Times of India," and “The Hindustan Times” amongst others. Shravani is also a founding member The Indian Forum for Corporate Communicators (IFCC) and (Indian Communicators Group (ICG.)
Shravani graduated with honours in Sociology from Delhi University which has given her a deep understanding of the diverse pan- Indian cultural context as well as global human connects.

 

 

Senjam Raj Sekhar

Named among the 100 most influential communicators in the world by the Holmes Report, Senjam Raj Sekhar oversees global communications and branding for Vedanta, a global natural resources company with operations in India, Australia, Ireland, Zambia, Liberia, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Namibia. Vedanta Group companies include Vedanta Resources plc, Sterlite, Sesa Goa, Hindustan Zinc and Cairn India. Earlier he was a Senior Vice President with Bharti, where he led communications for Airtel’s successful foray in 20 countries across Africa and South Asia.

Sunayna Malik

Sunayna has been with Text 100 for over 7 years now and in her capacity as the Managing Director, she holds responsibility for the overall leadership, strategy and direction of the Text 100 network in India. As a lead consultant, she is directly involved with some of Text 100’s key accounts across India including Samsung, Cisco, Lenovo, Uninor, Lupin, the Max group and SanDisk among others.

Sunayna has extensive Corporate Communications experience and has worked with leading IT companies in India. Prior to joining Text 100, she was the Corporate Communications lead at HCL Technologies where she worked for almost 8 years and was involved with the company’s IPO, brand repositioning exercise and investor relations program, alongwith broader marketing and corporate communication initiatives. She has also worked at Fujitsu and Xerox as the Regional Marketing lead .

A versatile communications professional, she has a composite understanding of all communications disciplines including Advertising, Film making, PR, Direct Marketing, Brand positioning and BTL marketing.

Pranjal Sharma

In his over 22-year career as an economic journalist, Pranjal Sharma has been involved with print, digital and television media.  
He is currently Knowledge and Editorial Advisor. He advises domestic and international organisations and helps them leverage knowledge for stakeholder engagement programmes.
Pranjal has been appointed Advisor at India’s public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati. He works with the Board and the CEO on developing growth strategies. He writes on policy for BusinessWorld magazine and also teaches information society and media subjects to post graduate students as Visiting Faculty.
 His previous position was Executive Editor, Bloomberg UTV channel

Viraj Chouhan

Viraj Chouhan is a management professional with over 16 years experience in Corporate Communications and stakeholder engagement. He has extensive exposure to reputation management and issue resolution both at an agency and corporate levels. Viraj is credited with successfully conceptualizing and executing a range of corporate brand building and stakeholder engagement initiatives..

As Corporate Communications Director at MTS India, Viraj is part of the leadership team, reporting to the President and CEO of the organization. In this role, Viraj is responsible for Internal and External Communications, Investor Relations and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Prior to MTS, Viraj was the General Manger, Public Affairs and Corporate Communications at Coca-Cola India. In this role, he conceptualized and drove corporate reputation management initiatives for the company. During his tenure, he was selected for Coca-Cola India’s prestigious ‘Pegasus’ program which recognizes the top one percent talent within the company. As part of the Corporate Communications function, Viraj also won the Coca-Cola India Division Presidents Award for three years in a row.
         
Viraj’s career graph includes innings with reputed organizations such as Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd. (BTVL), Vaishnavi Corporate Communications (VCC), Essar Cellphone (now Vodafone) and Ogilvy & Mather Public Relations.

A Post Graduate in Business Management, Viraj has specialized in Marketing and Information Technology.  He has also attended Management Development Programs at IIM Ahmadabad and IIM Kolkata respectively

Narayanan Madhavan

Narayanan Madhavan, senior journalist, columnist and editor, has more than 25 years of experience in journalism in Indian and international news organisations. He is currently a senior editor at Hindustan Times. He spent 12 of these years in Reuters, the international news agency, where he covered a range of issues from the Kargil war and general elections to being the Chief Technology Correspondent and Bangalore bureau head. He earlier worked for The Economic Times and later at Business Standard. He was also Senior Editor for a brief period in the Indian Express group
Though focused mainly on business and economic journalism with a strong exposure to information technology and the Internet, he has also covered or written on other issues including politics, diplomacy, cinema, culture, cricket and social issues.
He has covered India's economic reform and the information technology boom from the frontlines in Delhi and Bangalore during their crucial years and also covered leading events such as the nuclear tests and India-Pakistan conflict.
He likes to study and write on popular culture, and loves cinema and music in various forms. In addition to English, speaks Hindi, Tamil. Occasional poet who has written what he believes to be India's first current affairs column in verse.

Deepak Jolly

Deepak Jolly is Vice President Coca-Cola India and South West Asia. In his current assignment he headsPublic Affairs & Communications function for the India and Southwest Asia Business which includes India,Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives. Deepak specializes in the field of Corporate Communications, Public Policy, Corporate Social Responsibility, Consumer Response and CorporateSecurity. He has been working with Coca-Cola since year 2005.

A Public Affairs professional with 29 years’ experience, Deepak has worked in service and manufacturing across diverse industries such as hospitality, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and Telecom.In the last fourteen years, Deepak has also served on numerous Managing Committees of FMCG companies such as Pepsi Foods Limited, Godrey Philips India and Bharti Airtel.

Since the last eight years, Deepak is a part of the Leadership Council at Coca-Cola in India. His continuous engagement with opinion makers, regulatory bodies, media, and industry bodies has led to successful mitigation of crisis which was created by allegations of false pesticide contamination in the product.

He has also spear-headed number of water conservation and sanitation initiatives like Support My School Campaign. He is also a member of various national committees and several industry bodies. He is currently a memberof Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) committee on Rural Development as well as committee on Multi-Nationals.

He is a founding member of the Indian Beverages Association and has actively addressed various issues related to beverage industry at different forums. Deepak was awarded the best Communicator of the year award instituted by PRCI (Public Relation Council of India) for the year 2007 and most recently the received accolades for the Support My School campaign as the Best Corporate Social Responsibility Practice by the Blue Dart Global CSR
Awards and the Gold Standard Award for Public Private Partnership, Singapore. He is also the winner of Best MarCom Professional of the year in 2010 by Indira Group of Institutes and PRCI Hall of Fame for outstanding contribution to profession of PR.

Kavita Datta

KavitaDatta is a public relations professional with over 25 years of experience in the sector, spanning both the public and private space. She began her career in the PR Department of the Government of Madhya Pradesh, where she worked on social mobilization and public messaging campaigns, later moving to the tourism sector, where she anchored a massive rebranding exercise spanning almost a decade. In 2004 she left the government to work freelance, and later headed the State PR team of Reliance Industries between 2007-2009. She moved to Delhi in 2009, joining as a Partner with Mutual PR, where she has helped to build new business niches. Devoted to her two daughters, the younger of whom is just embarking on a career in photography while the elder pursues interests in sustainable development, Kavita manages to find time to meditate and pursue her quest for spiritual peace.

Anup Jain

Anup Jain, 41, works as Sr Director- Strategic Projects in Pizza Hut at Yum Restaurants India having moved into this role in Jan 2013. Prior to his, He was Head of Marketing & R&D at Pizza Hut Australia and New Zealand at Yum Restaurants International (YRI) responsible for a retail business spanning 370 stores and US$300 million. He has had a personal contribution in turning around Pizza Hut in the region driving it to #2 from #3 position on brand equity, distribution and sales growth after a gap of nearly 10 years. Under his stewardship, the online business for Pizza Hut grew 30% over 2 yrs and is now at 40% of sales. Yum Restaurants is the world’s largest restaurant company owning 3 brands – Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell worldwide. Anup has close to 16 years of Sales, Marketing and R&D experience across both developing and developed markets. He has accumulated this experience by working across diverse sectors such as FMCG, Retail, New media, Direct Selling and Consumer Durables. He has worked with companies like P&G, STAR, Oriflame Asia and Whirlpool prior to joining Yum Restaurants in Feb 2007 as Marketing Director for Pizza Hut- India Sri Lanka Mauritius and Bangladesh. In that stint, he played a key role in turning around the India Pizza Hut business and setting it on the growth path for the years ahead. Anup is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Delhi.

Deepa M Thomas

Deepa M Thomas is the 37 year old eCommerce Evangelist for eBay India where she is responsible for evangelizing the transformational potential of eCommerce to industry, corporates, brands, NGOs, entrepreneurs, consumers & media. Deepa has been with eBay India for over 8 years & is a member of the India Leadership Team. She is passionate about online shopping = smart shopping. Deepa is also leading the Asia Pacific eBay WIN (Women’s Initiative Network) in 2013.

Deepa leads Corporate Communications for eBay India & is responsible for eBay India’s reputation management& public relations programmes. She also manages the eBay for Charity programme where NGOs list charity products for sale to millions of global and Indian users.

Over the course of her eBay tenure, Deepa has also led key business roles; Partnerships with Banks &Telcos to provoke eCommerce Trial for their customers, Pop Culture sales of IPL, Celebrity & Movie merchandise& Collectibles Category Management.Deepa was also responsible for Corporate Communications for eBay in Philippines & Malaysia between 2010 and 2011. Deepa joined eBay in November 2004 and launched the eBay Brand & website in India.

Deepa has over 17 years of experience in corporate communication and was head of corporate communications for Marico and Kaya Skin Clinic. Deepa also worked at Clea Public Relations & Good Relations. Deepa actively evangelises the role of communication in corporate reputation & consumer awareness. She guest lectures at media and management institutes on a regular basis.

Deepa is passionate about animal welfare and hopes to set up a shelter for stray dogs soon. Her varied interests include blogging about food,travelling, movies, reading and collecting pig miniatures.

Sonya Madeira Stamp

Sonya Madeira Stamp has close to 18 years of experience working in India and Singapore with clients across industry sectors. She set up Rice Communications in January 2009 to add value to her clients with her experience working at some of the largest consultancies in the world as well as with boutique firms. Sonya is deeply committed to building long-term relationships with the clients at Rice as well as to lead a team of highly energized and talented communications professionals. Under her guidance, Rice Communications was awarded the PR Consultancy of the Year 2012 (Local) by the Institute of PR Singapore.

At Rice, Sonya oversees the growth of the business and manages key accounts for the company. Under her leadership, the team has grown rapidly within a short period of time from three consultants to 15(including staff outsourced to clients) in Singapore.She also manages global partner relations in priority markets in Asia, Europe and North America, and works closely with then on client opportunities.

Her focus includes managing client delivery and satisfaction, and building a solid reputation for Rice in the region. She regularly speaks at industry events, as well as academic institutes. She is often quoted on industry and business issues in business and marketing publications. Sonya is an Accredited Professional as recognized by the Institute of Public Relations Singapore. She is active on various social networks, and hopes to cross 5,000 connections on LinkedIn soon.

Her expertise spans business-to-business and business-to-consumer communications, internal and channel outreach as well as counsel to C-level executives. She is personally keen on working with start-ups as well as mobile technology firms. In this area, she is Chief Evangelist at Mobile Monday Singapore and was a Board Member of the Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific.

In 2011, Sonya was invited by the Workforce Development Authority in Singapore to participate in the Public Relations focus group as part of the Creative Industries Workforce Skills Qualification programme. In 2010, she was invited to contribute the opening chapter for a book Many Ships, One Boat on expat life in Singapore, which has since been published. In 2011, Sonya received the Woman Superachiever of the Year 2011award from CMO Asia as well as the DBS Bank Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce Promising Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 award. In 2012, she received the Achievers and Leaders Award 2012 from CMO Asia.

Before Sonya set up Rice, she led the Singapore office of local firm EASTWEST PR for five years, growing her team from one person to an 18-consultant office. Here she serviced a range of clients in the technology, pharmaceutical, professional services, consumer goods and retail sectors. She also doubled the firm’s revenues in this time. Sonya provided strategic counsel to clients, largely in the business-to-business space, while setting up systems and processes for the agency. Clients included Electrolux, Kraft Foods, Tandberg, Datacraft, Avnet Technology Solutions, Singapore Economic Development Board, and others.

Between 2002 and 2004, Sonya worked at multinational firms Hill & Knowlton and Weber Shandwick in Singapore on regional accounts for global leaders including Hewlett Packard, LogicaCMG, Universitas 21 Global, InFocus, Oracle and others.

From 2000 to 2002, Sonya took a break from agency life and spent the time building intranets for companies at Friday Corporation in India. She led the team that conceptualized, designed and developed TATA OneWorld, a Group-level intranet for one of India’s largest conglomerates. Here, she was also responsible for managing the service provider’s public relations activities.

In 1997, Sonya joined the start-up team at Text 100 India. One of the initial projects she was involved in was Bill Gates’ first visit to India, an event she considered baptism by fire. Over the next three and a half years, she grew her team and client portfolio, and as Account Director, she led the India efforts for both Microsoft and SAP. She last held the position of Joint Deputy Managing Director of the Delhi office, managing a team of 20.Sonya started her PR career at Genesis, now BursonMarsteller, in 1995. Her first clients were Discovery Channel, Amadeus, RPG Ricoh, DCM Daewoo and Nokia, and she remembers them fondly.

Others
Sonya graduated in English Literature from Lady Shriram College, Delhi University, and went on to complete her post-graduation in Marketing Management from the Times School of Marketing in New Delhi. She has lived in Singapore for nearly 11years, and enjoys time with her six-year old daughter and two Norwegian Forrest cats.

Industry Involvement

• Member, Public Relations Workgroup, Creative Industries Workforce Skills Qualifications programme, Singapore Workforce Development Authority – 2012-present
• Member, Advisory Council, Blugrapes – 2012-present
• Co-Chair, Communications, Corporate Giving Council. National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre – 2012-present
• Member, Advisory Council, Mobile Monday Singapore – 2009-present
• Member (MMA), Advisory Council, Digital Advertising Alliance, Media Development Authority – 2010-present
• Board Member and Secretary, Executive Committee,Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific – 2010-2012
• Member, Advisory Council, iMedia Agency Summit – 2012

L V Krishnan

LV, joined TAM in October 2000 and his team’s focus has been on developing TAM as key information input while strategizing a Brand’s communication plan in the Indian Media industry. LV’s background stretches to almost 2 decades post joining the stream of Indian Media community. His experience has stretched across Mediacom (Grey India), JWT & Starcom, working with clients like P&G, Unilever Personal Products, Bayer, Bajaj, Godrej etc. In his stint in Starcom, his work on Coke went on to win the Starcom’s most prestigious global media award, “North Star”. Over these years in TAM, he and his team has presented their selected Research paper on “Breaking Program Loyalty” in ESOMAR conferences in Tokyo as well as in Montreal, Canada on “Reincarnating TAM Panelists”. Besides this, his team’s paper has been selected for a presentation in the forthcoming American Research Foundation worldwide conference in June 2013 in New York. He and his team together have planned & launched across years, not only a number of new customer initiatives but also new successful divisions under TAM like TAM Sports, Eikona PR Track, Radio Audience Measurement (RAM) and S-Group as a Broadcast Audience Strategy consulting arm of TAM successfully. While he continues to stretch his interest from Reading & Writing to teaching Media in various institutes, his passion for Astrophysics (the area he focused during his studies) still rules very high. Today, looking back at the last two decades, including 13 years in TAM, it has certainly been an experience full of fun, challenges, innovations and a lot of dare devil acts.

Dr Sanjaya Baru

Dr Sanjaya Baru

Seema Ahuja

Seema Ahuja is an incisive Communication Specialist with over two decades of rich experience of steering the corporate communication practice for brand building and perception management of well established brands like Ranbaxy, Lupin, Jubilant Bhartia group and Biocon. As Corporate brand ambassador she has successfully managed communication challenges in the areas of external and internal communication in pharma, hospitality and health & fitness industry. Her global role has entailed stakeholder engagement across several countries in developed and emerging markets like USA, Europe, Japan, India, LatAm and Southeast Asia.
Her expertise in communication, media relations, social media, brand identity management, editorial writing, events management, CSR and employee communication make her a well -respected name in the Corporate Communication world.
In her career spanning over 23 years she has constantly enhanced the value of the brand she represents.  She started as a Management Trainee in 1989 at a leading five star hotel in Delhi and moved on from Hospitality to Health and Fitness to the Pharmaceutical industry in 1996. Her career path in the pharmaceutical sectorspans across the value chain from managing corporate brand building for India’s first & largest pharma MNC, Ranbaxy, to largest CRAMS company, Jubilant, to largest Biotech company, Biocon. She is currently heading Corporate Communication at Biocon, based out of Bangalore, where she is responsible for managing Brand Biocon as well Brand Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.
Seema, is a Hotel Management Graduate, with Post Grads in Advertising & Marketing; and a  Post Grad in PR from London School of PR.