RajDeepak Das to replace KV Sridhar as Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett India

RajDeepak Das has been named the chief creative officer of Leo Burnett India. In his new role as CCO for the India operations across Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai Das will be based in Mumbai and will work closely with Saurabh Varma the chief executive officer of Leo Burnett Group India. He replaces KV Sridhar (aka Pops), one of the legends of Indian advertising, who announced his departure from the network last week after 17 years.

Das (left)  has had a long run at BBDO across offices in Asia. Five and half years ago he moved to India, as the country’s youngest Executive Creative Director to start BBDO in Mumbai. Under his leadership, in the first three years BBDO Mumbai moved from working out of coffee shops, became one of the top 10 most creative agencies in the region.

Before coming to Mumbai, Das worked for four years in Bangkok under the leadership of BBDO CCO Suthisak Sucharittanonta. Despite having to communicate with sign language, he started a new genre of advertising, which won honors across the world. He was an integral part of the regional  team and worked closely with the best BBDO creative brains across continents.

His work on Gillette such as Women Against Lazy Stubble, ShaveSutra, and many more have been recognized worldwide apart from winning Asia’s only Cannes Creative Effectiveness Lion. Das has also won more than 150 metals at Cannes, One Show, D&AD, Clio, Spikes Asia, Effies, Asian Marketing effectiveness award and many more regional and global award shows

Mark Tutssel, chief creative officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide who was personally involved in the recruitment process that spanned several continents, said that Das, with his proven track record behind world-class, award-winning work for global brands including P&G, Pepsi, Visa, Pizza Hut and Tesco among others is a new breed of creative, modern-day leader, a holistic thinker with sharp business acumen. “Raj brings with him an exuberant amount of global experience, creativity, focus and best-in-class leadership.  He understands today’s creative landscape is always-on and always integrated. The decision to bring Raj on board as our CCO holds immense promise for our clients and our creative product. I strongly believe that Raj, alongside Saurabh will form a perfect unity of creative and strategy, making the agency, one of India’s leading creative agencies today, the best integrated agency in the region going forward.”

“The appointment of Raj and his partnership with Saurabh represents a new beginning and milestone for Leo Burnett India. India’s growing importance as an economic force on the world stage and its rapid change from a traditionally print and TV dominated market to one that will see online ad market reach USD 1.12 billion next year are key indicators of transformation in our clients’ businesses. We are focused on ensuring that Leo Burnett is at the forefront of this change, with the agility to meet the needs of today’s marketers. I have no doubt that under the combined power of Saurabh’s strategy and Raj’s creative leadership, they will be able to jointly take the agency to the next level and evolve into the new model of HumanKind communications company. Both of them will have the full support of the network to make Leo Burnett the fastest growing and most creative integrated agency in India,” said Jarek Ziebinski, President, Leo Burnett Asia Pacific.

Saurabh Varma said, “Five months back we communicated our intention to be the best integrated communication company in India. With the appointment of Raj, we have made a decisive step in that direction. Raj and I will partner to create work that is not only human, but also partcipative by design. We will focus on work which brings out the purpose of our brands. Ultimately, the route to building the most popular brands is in creating work which creates believers not just consumers’.

Said Rajdeepak Das, “I always believed that ‘Agencies don’t create iconic brands, people do.’ And that is what Leo Burnett stands for. In Leo Burnett I want to bring in new trends of communications to make our brands future ready”.