Havas Group India is building a fresh image under the leadership of Rana Barua. When Barua took over as the group’s chief executive officer in 2018, the advertising agency network based in Paris had three agency verticals and a workforce of 200 in India. Since then, the network has expanded to encompass 11 agencies and 1,200 employees.
Havas Group India recently expanded its e-commerce and content capabilities, as well as resurrecting its sports and entertainment business. On the margins of the recently completed Goafest 2022, Barua chatted with afaqs! These were the most difficult two-and-a-half years in any leader’s career. We had been absolutely thrown off our game. Either swim or sink was the only option. First and foremost, as a leader and a person, I have evolved. Communication became more compassionate and transparent.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are three more areas of focus. We’ve implemented a number of industry-first initiatives, including a 12-member Women Who Inspire committee aimed at fostering gender diversity and women leadership across our group of companies, a ‘Bounce Back’ programme for women returning from maternity leave, and a blind hiring technique that involves reviewing resumes without mentioning gender. We worked more as a group to establish our agency.
In the year 2020, many agencies were brand new, and there was no integration. When there are a range of organisations that conduct various job and have diverse senior leadership, figuring out the optimal integration model is one of the most difficult difficulties that most groups confront. Bringing teams together online made it easier to integrate agencies.
As a result, the team was able to secure more contracts and collaborate more effectively. Havas Group India’s three verticals – Creative, Media, and Havas Life Sorento – have all seen double-digit growth.
On the creative front, we’ve been winning major international and new-age clients including Citroen, Tata Cliq, Tata Cliq Luxury, Vivo, and Amazon, in addition to some of the legacy brands we have in our portfolio like Reckitt, Dabur, P&G, and Suzuki. Zydus’ complete brand was recently reimagined by us.
This is a fantastic opportunity for Langoor and the team, and we are thrilled to be a part of this new chapter in our history.”
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