R Balakrishnan, group chairman, Mullen Lowe Lintas Group India, has decided to move out of the advertising profession after a three-decade-long career in the industry. Balki, as he’s popularly known, joined the agency (then known as Lintas) in 1994, in its Bangalore office.
“We’ve been planning this for some time now. It’s been a long process of succession planning that concludes with my move. The agency has given me more than 22 years’ worth in opportunities, growth, values and, most of all, some friends-for-life,” said Balki.
In July 2015, the agency put in place, a management structure that put Joseph George in charge as the group’s CEO and Balki’s creative lieutenants, Amer Jaleel and Arun Iyer, as chief creative officers.
Balki started his career at Mudra, before moving on to Lintas. It was at Lintas that Balki ventured into film direction, debuting with
Alex Leikikh, global CEO, MullenLowe Group, said: “Balki leaves behind an operation that’s successful and future-ready, a leadership team that’s perhaps the strongest of any agency in India, and a culture that he shaped along the way while himself leading by example. While we will miss his infectiously passionate presence, we wish him even greater success as a film-maker.”
Balki’s tenure at Lintas was not without its hiccups. It reached a flashpoint in 2007, when the agency’s Indian operations sold its entire stake to the InterPublic Group. The agency’s then chairman, Prem Mehta, distributed the proceeds of the stake sale to Lintas’ employees, as the shares were owned by the Lintas Employee Welfare Trust.
Balki and a few others, who were employed as consultants at the agency, were left in the lurch. Industry observers say that it was at the holding company IPG’s intervention that Balki was retained and made the agency’s next chairman.
Speaking on the agency’s way forward Joseph George, Group CEO, MullenLowe Lintas Group, said: “Balki and I have tried to think this through every step of the way, and it’s reached a place where we feel the agency is ready for today, and tomorrow.”
Balki said, “There is no bigger happiness than to see a thought actually work the way you had fantasised. Lowe was a thought am proud of. Ok...next!”