Portfolio Night 2025 powers up India’s next-gen

The One Club for Creativity, in collaboration with BBDO India, DDB Mudra Group, and TBWA India, recently hosted the fourth edition of Portfolio Night 2025.

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The Portfolio Night gave 115 emerging creatives the invaluable opportunity to showcase groundbreaking ideas and receive direct feedback on their work from an esteemed jury.

The One Club for Creativity, in collaboration with BBDO India, DDB Mudra Group, and TBWA India, concluded the fourth edition of Portfolio Night 2025.

The event serves to connect emerging talent directly with influential creative leaders in India, designed to bypass traditional hiring barriers and fast-track young careers. It offered participants an opportunity to receive direct feedback on their work, showcase out-of-the-box ideas, and forge connections to help them in their professional trajectory.

This year's Portfolio Night saw 115 emerging creatives convene for an evening of one-on-one portfolio reviews. The diverse talent pool in the 2025 edition, spanned those from design, planning, direction, content writing, and more, underscoring the interdisciplinary nature of modern advertising. A panel of 35 jurors across two sections — virtual (October 6) and an in-person competition in Mumbai (October 7) — evaluated the young talent on their ideation and creativity.

The Mumbai edition kicked off with an address by Josy Paul, chairperson and chief creative officer (CCO) at BBDO India, who set the tone for the evening with a powerful message to young creatives. “We don’t need you to fit in — we need you to stand out. To make us uncomfortable. Challenge us. Shake us. Make us see the world through your eyes. We don’t need replicas of what’s been done. We need sparks. We need your light. We need your truth,” he said.

Sumit Kumar emerged as the winner of the in-person competition, while Kareena Batija took the top honour for the virtual pan-India edition. Both winners will now advance to the global Portfolio Night All-Stars programme, joining a select group of winning creatives from host cities across the world. As All-Stars, they will collaborate internationally to tackle a live, complex brief from this year’s exclusive global sponsor, Google.

This Portfolio Night All-Stars programme includes intensive seminars and recruiting sessions with global industry leaders. The winning team globally will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to present their campaign at Creative Week 2026.

Speaking about this year's experience, Rahul Mathew, CCO, DDB Mudra Group, said, “Portfolio Evening has been a long-standing partnership between Omnicom and One Club. It’s a reflection of our belief that talent is the only real asset that we have as an industry. We’re always grateful to all the CCOs who turn up every year to support this initiative. This is about us spotting, encouraging and giving the next generation of talent the opportunities, or even the belief, that they deserve.”

Russell Barrett, chief creative experience officer at TBWA India added, “It is always amazing to engage and interact with the next generation of creative talent. In an age of generative AI and mass-produced creativity, Portfolio Night is the best opportunity for us to interact with the raw and pure talent of these young creatives.”

Jury Panel – Mumbai