Partha Sinha departs Publicis CSO role

Publicis India, Publicis Ambience and Publicis South East Asia's chief strategy officer, Partha Pratim Sinha, is leaving after spending close to six years with the agency.

Sinha's India responsibilities will be absorbed by Naresh Gupta, EVP planning, Publicis India and S Subramanyeswar (Subbu), national planning head of Publicis Ambience. "Partha grew into the role of the chief strategy officer for two of Publicis' competing agencies in India and did a fantastic job of leading the planning and strategy function in both the agencies, in a way that no client ever complained," said Nakul Chopra, chairman and CEO, Publicis Group India. "Under his aegis we put together a robust planning arm and thus, I am not looking to hire anyone from outside the agency to replace Partha."

However, there is a search on for a suitable person to take over his regional responsibilities, added Chopra.

While Sinha is tight-lipped about his next assignment, he said, "I did some of my best work with Publicis and was growing fantastically with the agency but there comes a time in one's life when you have to move on. I am evaluating my options and will be in a better state to explain the move once everything if finalised."

Sinha, 35, who joined Publicis India as head of planning in 2002, soon also took over as the planning chief of Ambience once it came into the Publicis fold. The former Zee TV strategy and marketing head who was a key cog in the re-launch initiative of the channel, was soon elevated to the CSO rank for India operations. Only last year did Sinha, an IIT-IIM graduate took up the additional responsibility as the regional strategist for Publicis in Asia building upon a number of important initiatives that occurred in 2006, including the launch of Publicis Dialog in China, Thailand, Hong-Kong and Korea.