Zenith India has announced new appointments at senior levels. Jai Lala has joined for the newly created position of chief operating officer (COO) at Zenith and will oversee operations, structure and expansion in addition to the scaling up of specialised, future-facing offerings for the agency.
Lala has over two decades of experience across across Media Planning, Buying, Research & Sales. He has worked in organisations such as UTV, ESPN Star Sports and leading media agency groups. His last stint was with MediaCom as chief strategy & growth officer. He has serviced clients across the country such as Unilever, PepsiCo, GSK, ICICI, Castrol, Lenovo, USL, Coke, Marico among others. He has created multiple and unique trading practices in the industry. He is also a
visiting faculty at ISB and MICA.
In addition, Zenith has elevated its managing partner and head, West & South, Ajit Gurnani to the
newly created role of chief client officer. Gurnani has 20 plus years of work experience across Client leadership, Brand Management and Media investment management. He has worked as a brand and media custodian at Marico and IIFCO, and has driven media investment management for The Aditya Birla Group and its companies, Mercedes-Benz, NIVEA, Zee TV, Unilever and Colgate Palmolive in previous stints with agencies. At Zenith, he has led the media investment mandate for businesses such as Parle, Toyota, Singapore Airlines, Singapore Tourism Board, HDFC Life among others.
Tanmay Mohanty, group CEO, Zenith India said, “Zenith stands at an important growth juncture. We have witnessed an absolutely spectacular year so far in terms of new business wins and performance on key client businesses. Jai will aid me in client deliveries, keeping up the scale and momentum of operations, integration of existing talent and new hires and the expansion in overall footprint for Zenith. Ajit on the other hand brings in huge expertise and value to every client conversation. He has transformed the way we deliver to clients and will shape our client relationships further.”
