BS People: Shashi Sinha

Chief executive, IPG Mediabrands

By all accounts, Shashi Sinha had always been something of an oddball, but a very pragmatic one. Back in the late seventies, when most of his batch mates from IIT and IIM were going abroad with their freshly-acquired degrees, he chose to plough his own furrow in India.

A few years into a fast-track career in marketing at the UB Group, he decided to give it all up and plunge headlong into advertising with a pay cut.

Then, in an industry where job hopping is considered more the norm than an exception, Sinha has stuck around at the same agency (Ulka, then FCB Ulka, now Draftfcb Ulka) for an unstinting 25 years.

Of course, the risks he took early on have paid rich dividends. Just a few months back, Sinha was named chief executive of IPG Mediabrands in India. In operation globally since 2007, IPG Mediabrands was launched in India last year by bringing three media agencies — Lodestar UM, Initiative and BPN — under one umbrella. In India, as in many other markets, IPG Mediabrands competes with WPP’s Group M, Omnicom’s Optimum Media Direction and Publicis Groupe’s Vivaki.

Sinha prides himself on being a master tactician, probably because he started in the account planning cell at Draftfcb Ulka. Switching to account management, Sinha, his peers say, demonstrated exceptional team-building skills and refused to let go of people when the agency changed hands several times over.

An engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and an MBA from IIM Bangalore, Sinha also has first-hand knowledge of product management, thanks to his stints at Parle Beverages, India’s largest soft drinks company, and then as regional sales manager at Herbertsons, a liquor and beverages company. In the early 1990s, Sinha set up Lodestar, India’s first specialised media planning and buying outfit, leading it to several significant milestones, including setting up Lodestar Labcentre, India’s first media research and tools development cell.

Under his stewardship, Lodestar has been awarded the Media Agency of the Year three times out of the last six and has become one of the top three media agencies in the country after its merger with Universal.

Sinha has rapidly expanded and developed Lodestar UM over the past six years, led the way for the foundation of its new offerings in the market and has remained actively engaged in various industry fora.