MUMBAI – Saurabh Varma, chief executive officer (CEO), Leo Burnett Group India has appointed RajDeepak Das as the chief creative officer (CCO), Leo Burnett India. In his new role as CCO for the India operations across Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai Raj will be based in Mumbai and will work closely with Varma.
The appointment follows the departure of KV Sridhar (Pops), whose last day as CCO is on May 4. Following 17 years of service with Leo Burnett and over 30 years of working in advertising, he has decided to take the leap to reinvent himself and pursue other interests.
Mark Tutssel, chief creative officer, Leo Burnett Worldwide who was personally involved in the recruitment process that spanned several continents, said that Raj, 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”.
About RajDeepak Das
Raj has a body of work that reflects his passion, understanding of business and new age solutions that delivers results.
He has had a long run at BBDO across offices in Asia. Five and half years back he moved to India, as the country’s youngest Executive Creative Director to start BBDO in Mumbai. Under his leadership, in the first 3 years itself, BBDO Mumbai, from working out of coffee shops, became one of the top 10 most creative agencies in the region.
Before coming to Mumbai, Raj worked for 4 years in Bangkok under the leadership of 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 creative brains across continents.
He has spearheaded and influenced change amongst the largest global companies moving them towards a more integrated and engagement led communications approach.
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. Raj has 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
Raj was ranked among the top 10 most awarded Executive Creative Directors of the Asia-Pacific region.
He has created successful work for brands like Gillette, Visa, Pepsi, Mars Food, FedEx, BMW Mini, Cadbury’s, Blackberry, GM, J&J, HomePro and Titan to name a few.
After passing out of MICA, Raj started his advertising career with Enterprise Nexus followed by stints at Grey and Contract.
Raj firmly believes that his best creation till date is his two-year-old daughter!
