V. Ramani - Vice Chairman & Managing Director

‘With years of experience in the advertising world (Lintas, Ulka, McCann Ericsson, Contract and Euro RSCG), Ramani can truly be credited for conceptualising the idea of an advertising agency that specialised in Internet communication. As a venture, he was so excited about the idea that he personally selected the first employees of this company 6 years ago. He has served as guest faculty at MICA and other Management Institutes. Adjudged the Mediaperson for the Year 2000, Ramani is the driving force behind and within Ignitee.

Harminder Kaur - Chief Strategy Officer

A postgraduate from MICA, Harminder has more than 8 years of experience in Media Planning with McCann Erickson, Lintas and MPG. She has handled media planning activities for clients like Gillete, MasterCard, LG and Reckitt Benckiser among others.

Her infectious laughter and joie de vivre ensures that not only everyone’s on their toes, they’re also having loads of fun!

Atul Hegde - Chief Executive Officer

‘Professional Entrepreneur’ is how Atul describes himself. In a career spanning 12 years, he has had highly successful stints at Euro RSCG and Vyas Giannetti Creative—both leading advertising agencies in the country. His passion for treading the path less travelled has now brought him to Ignitee and the digital domain.

Atul’s hobbies range from cooking and playing tennis to movie watching marathons with his wife. He is currently pursuing his passion for gambling and harbours hopes of driving one large casino in Vegas towards bankruptcy!

S Dharmarajan - Executive VP - Online Media

Dharma, as he is popularly known, brings his wealth of experience spanning more than 2 decades into the digital space. He started his career with Lintas (now Lowe India) in 1982. After a long stint, he moved to Triton and in the later years, moved to Euro RSCG where he spent an adventurous 3 years. He then took a sabbatical from active media and returned two years later to join Fulcrum, the exclusive media buying unit of Hindustan Unilever Ltd.

Apart from his Media duties at Ignitee, Dharma is currently trying to get back in shape to take his place as the lead batsman of the formidable Ignitee cricket team!

Shankar. B - National Business Director

Shankar, a graduate in physics from Madras University with post-graduation in systems management from NIIT, has 16 years’ of experience in the field of media sales, including eight years in the television space. He began his career in 1993 with Getit Yellow Pages and launched the Hyderabad Telephone directory successfully. His experience also includes working with reputed Indian media brands like the Indian Express Group, successfully launched India’s leading Hindi newspaper called ‘Navbharat’ and has also worked with the country’s leading Equity Research Magazine ‘Capital Market’ handling the South markets. His television career began with Raj TV and then moved to Turner International where he handled prestigious accounts like Cartoon Network, Pogo, CNN, Zee MGM and Zee English. He has also worked with Hello FM. Prior to joining Ignitee; he has worked with E 18 – A Network 18 Company as National Sales Head for over 2 years.

In his free time Shankar unwinds himself by reading Robin Sharma or watching Tom Hanks’s Movies. He is also a big fan of Enrique and Illayaraja Music.

R. Sreekant - General Manager – New Business Development - North & East, Delhi

Sreekant, a post graduate comes in with 13 years of work experience in Sales and Business Development. His career graph in sales ranges from a financial background with G. A. Vasant Financials Pvt. Ltd., an inter bank broking firm in foreign exchange; Thomas Cook India Ltd and Tata Finance Amex Ltd; then switched to media and entertainment to join Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., TV 9 (No.1 Regional News channel in AP), Hello FM 106.4 and TAG Media network. He played an important role in nurturing and establishing The times of India Hyderabad edition, as well as Hyderabad Times as a strong No2 in Hyderabad market amongst the Clients and agencies. In the print domain, his forte lies in planning and executing special features. After generating revenues for various offline media, Sreekant found his true calling in the rapidly emerging digital media.

His interests lie in Stock Market analysis and trading, reading, traveling and listening to music.

Tarini Mohindar - General Manager, Mumbai

Tarini seeks new experiences and after spending 9 years in advertising, has decided to move into the digital world. She has worked on brands like Philips, Sony Entertainment Television, Voltas, BBC World and The Aditya Birla group to mention a few.

She is passionate about traveling and hopes she wins the lottery one day so she can explore the world. In her free time, she loves to play with her cat.

Jyotindra Bagwadkar - Head Technology

With as many as 10 years experience in the online industry (3 years in eCommerce), Jyotindra has in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in Client Side Scripting, Server Side Scripting and Web and Database Server Management, Client Server Architecture, Back-up Server Solutions, Windows IIS, Linux Apache, IBM Websphere and SSL Certificate Implementations.

As a Project Manager, Jyotin (as he is more popularly known) played a key role in eCommerce projects. He has also facilitated the creation of over 150 websites.

Few know that Jyotin doubles up as a first-rate mimic artist—who said geeks are boring?

Vikram Gupta - Business Head - Delhi

Vikram started his career with the offline world, but then couldn’t resist the temptation of the fast-paced New Media Marketing Services and jumped from the fat into the fire at Ignitee. He’s had the opportunity to experience different platforms like print, wireless and digital. The brands he’s worked on include names like Coke, Apple (iTunes), Napster, Reebok, Religare, Lufthansa, DLF, Yamaha, Big Bazaar, Absolut, India Today Group, Loksatta and MTV

A post graduate in Management from D.A.V.V. Indore with a major in Marketing and a minor in Finance, he enjoys engaging in strategy formulation and exploring cross platform collaborations between Media & Brands. When he’s done sending a million briefs to the creative team, he surfs the net to hunt for software and gadgets and he watches lots of television—Discovery and movie channels, to be precise.

Bhairav Parikh - Head Digital Production

Armed with a diploma in Computer Arts from the Edit Computer Institute, Bhairav has been there and done that in the world of digital, print and video production. Although his big break came with JWT, Bhairav considers his experience at Vyas Giannetti Creative as the most enriching—that’s where he grew from the rank of Digital Artist to Head of Support Services/IT. His most important achievement at VGC was the development of an archiving system, whereby he could find jobs done 10 years ago in a matter of minutes—something unheard of in most other agencies. He plans to illuminate Ignitee with all those years of experience, and of course, his wacky sense of humour!

Apart from long drives and haute cuisine, he has a large appetite for movies—be it Bollywood, Hollywood or even foreign language films! This passion led him to shoot an Eco India award-winning film. His dream? Directing BABLOO KI BHAVNA, a full-length feature film. Interested producers may please contact him!

Akhil Almeida - Business Head-Mumbai

Armed with an MBA from the Asian Institute of Management, and more that 5 years of experience in Marketing, Operations and HR, Akhil found his true calling in digital media. The experience of working with clients in Banking, ITES and the Automotive sector convinced him that old paradigms were being reshaped by the new digital frontier. When’s he’s not helping clients realize their untapped potential with innovative campaigns, Akhil spends his time riding his vintage motorcycle, playing football, and adding to his extensive collection of graphic novels. An avid film and music buff, he is currently planning a round-the-world motorcycle trip to document the origins of modern musical styles. Sponsors are welcome.

Nanda Kishore - Business Head - Bengaluru

Nanda Kishore is a postgraduate from SRM Institute of Management Studies, Chennai. In the last six years, he has worked in the Client Servicing departments of leading advertising agencies: McCann Erickson, Percept/H and Sasi Advertising, where he has serviced several clients including Tata Indicom, TTK ? LIG (Durex and Kohinoor condoms), Airtel (broadband and telephone services) and Arun Ice-creams.

In his spare time, Kishore cheers his favourite cricket teams to victory. Now and then, he packs his bags and sets off on a new expedition across India

Patanjali Patnaik - Creative Director - Mumbai

When he was born his father named him Patanjali. Everyone else decided to call him Bobby (Bobby Fischer was the origin not Dimple Kapadia as widely believed) at home. To his father’s disappointment, the name Bobby stuck on with most people in agencies he worked with. May be because, his wife hates him for it now, agencies were his second home.

This is no biography, but then, we need to cover what he did professionally. Nothing much actually, according to him. In his career of a little over 11 years as a copy person he could become nothing like David Abbott, he regrets. That’s setting high standards. Which he tried his best to achieve while working with agencies like iB&W, Mudra and Vyas Giannetti Creative. On brands such as Videocon, Victorinox, Skoda Auto, Ajanta Pharma, Akai, The Leela Group, The Aditya Birla Group Corporate, Birla Sun Life Insurance, BSLI Mutual Fund, Park Hotels, The Times Group, The Indian Express Group, Big Bazaar, LIC, Reliance Mutual Fund, Reliance Petroleum, among others. Won a few awards on the way. He brings in the same passion to the digital arena where he feels like a gaming character going for the kill.

Otherwise, he writes Hindi poetry, watches movies, sings to himself, searches for SST good food joints in Bombay (Or Mumbai according to some dictates) by lanes, tries his best to keep his wife happy (Phew!), and watches helplessly his two year old son spoiling his newly painted walls with crayons, seeing an art director in him to team up with in the future. Dreamers never die they live forever in their own dreams.