Subbaraju Alluri takes over as CEO Grey Group Indonesia and Sharan Sood promoted to GM

Grey Group AMEA has announced that Subbaraju Alluri will be taking over as Grey’s Area Director – Indonesia & Thailand, and will continue to report to Nirvik Singh, Chairman & CEO Grey Group, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa.

Alluri (pictured left) began his career in advertising with DDB Chennai (India). After stints at JWT and Rapp Collins, he moved on to Grey Group Indonesia. During his tenure there, he was instrumental in expanding the workforce and clinching accounts such as BMW, Indosat, Daihatsu and Wyeth.

His leadership qualities and stellar performance prompted a move to head Grey Group Singapore’s local operations in 2005, transforming it into one of Singapore’s fastest-growing creative outfits within a year. He boosted the agency’s profitability by leading the team to win multiple major accounts.

In 2013, Alluri led Grey Group Singapore to win a number of accolades at Cannes and AdFest, which resulted in 2014 with Grey Group Singapore being the most awarded Healthcare agency in Asia Pacific. At the end of 2015, he took over as Area Director for Singapore and Thailand, with Grey having just completed the acquisition of a full-service independent agency NudeJeh, in Thailand. Today, the combined agencies include a client roster that extends to GSK, P&G, Ferrero, Dulux, Grohe, Pringles, K Bank and Volvo, among others.  

“I am looking forward to taking on the challenges that come with this new role. Indonesia is an interesting and growing market that I am familiar with. There is scope and the potential to make quite an impact and I am happy to be a part of this journey,” said Alluri.

In addition, the agency announced that Sharan Sood has been elevated to General Manager, Grey Group Indonesia. Sood (pictured left) will continue to focus on his P&G role as well as play an instrumental part in the seamless transition of Grey Group Indonesia’s leadership. In his new position, he will be reporting to the CEO, Grey Group Indonesia, Subbaraju Alluri.

Sood started his career in Euro RSCG PR working on high end lifestyle brands such as Bvlgari and Wella before moving to Ogilvy & Mather’s specialist rural division where he worked on Unilever’s Low Cost distribution model Project Shakti, in addition to leading consultancy projects for India’s largest telecom and insurance clients: Vodafone, Tata Tele services and Prudential ICCI.

Sood then moved to DDB as Head of Planning, Mumbai to work in diversified services which included Activation, Events, Sports Marketing and Shopper Marketing.

He came to Jakarta in 2013, to lead the WPP P&G Team where he was responsible for providing strategic oversight and leadership as well as to drive WPP’s horizontality agenda. Sood managed WPP’s relationship with P&G in Indonesia across several areas such as brand initiatives and shopper marketing using multiple specialized WPP operating companies, thereby strengthening the entire network’s collaborative offerings for P&G.

“I have been working out of the Grey offices for a while now and the team and the talent is very familiar to me. Our aim is to be able to give our clients the best service and offerings available. With the changes at hand, I am confident we will be able to achieve this,” said Sood.

“At Grey, we want to make changes so that the clients are our main priority and the team is able to work cohesively to achieve big gains. Both Raju and Sharan have proved time and again that they are able to provide solutions and deliver our best famously effective work. We want to build the Grey brand further and I have full confidence that we will get there. I would also like to thank Monika Rudijono for all her hard work & effort during her tenure as CEO, Grey Group Indonesia. We wish her great success in all her future endeavors,” added Singh.