Grey India appoints Malvika Mehra, Amit Akali as national creative directors; Shalini Dam quits

Dam was promoted to national creative director from her position as executive creative director of Southeast Asia in 2008 to replace Priti Nair.

Based in Mumbai, Mehra and Akali have been charged with raising the agency’s creative standards.

The duo will work on brands including Audi, Bharti Axa, Britannia, Deutsche Bank, Godrej Sara Lee, GSK Consumer Healthcare, ITC, Parle, P&G, Suzlon, United Spirits Ltd., Wyeth and 3M.

On the appointments, Jishnu Sen, COO of Grey India, said: “Grey is on a path of change and we’re hungry for new business. Our global motto is to be ‘famously effective’ and to live up to that, we have to continuously up our game on both strategy and creative. We are always on the lookout for key people and Malvika and Amit bring us the passion, energy and creative know-how, offering clients a compelling reason to give their creative mandate to Grey.”

On Dam’s resignation, Jishnu said: “We are really sorry to see Shalini leave us after a long innings, we wish her well.”

Mehra said: “Having met Tim Mellors and Nirvik Singh, I realise how determined they are to change Grey’s creative reputation. The fact that Grey’s been steadily increasing its tally at Cannes and hiring some great creative people is testament to that resolve. What’s more, the agency has an exciting set of accounts across interesting categories like confectionaries and automobiles that provide us an opportunity to do good work.”

Akali said: “We understand that just bringing in two people is not going to make a difference. It’s the coming together of people and culture that will make the difference. Our partners here are solid advertising individuals with a keen strategic vision and we’re sure they’ll provide the right platform for our creative teams to go forward.”

Nirvik Singh (pictured), chairman and CEO of Grey Group Asia-Pacific, reiterated his commitment to boosting the agency’s creative product.

He said: “With Malvika and Amit’s creative reputation and the work they’ve been doing in creating effective and award winning campaigns versus award winning scams, we hope to add value to the agency’s creative product.”