Ram Prasad P. A.

Experience

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  TTK PRESTIGE LTD

  Jun 1994 - Dec 1996

  Area Sales Manager

  Lead a team of nine Sales & Service Representatives in the 2nd largest market for the company, Andhra Pradesh. Launched Prestige non-stick cookware in a Nirlep dominant market, turned its fortunes around with a Trade activation program & emerge as the strongest challenger. Spotted & unlatched a significant institutional segment opportunity for the company in Andhra Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh.

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  Whirlpool Corporation

  Jan 1997 - Jan 1999

  Manager - Zonal Sales Operations

  Started up the role as a Zonal logistical resource & information centre, aiding the zonal General Manager in sales planning & stock availability. Rolled-out the CFA system & smoothly transitioned from a company-run operation. East Zone was held as a model zone in terms of efficiencies & best practices. Transferred to West Zone to replicate the East Zone success & achieved the same in nine months.

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  JWT

  Jan 1999 - Sept 2004

  The mandate was to lead the agency thinking on wide array of clients & brands. Some key achievements:Post winning the pitch for Levi’s, the brand sprang to life in India in 2003, riding on the launch of ‘low rise jeans’, again, triggering a new fashion wave amongst youth, celebrating 'body beautiful'. The work also won a rich haul of international creative awards for the team & the agency – Silver ABBYs, the London International Award, the Clio Awards & the D&AD Showcase. Identified the idea behind the launch of Standard Chartered's unique Cricket Credit Card - by tapping into India's passion for the game - which went on to surpass all client expectations on subscriptions.On Unilever, was the strategic planner on their biggest tea brands - Red Label & Three Roses. Worked on the launch idea for one of their key innovations - boilable tea bags. And the brief for a Knorr Annapurna innovation was taken across South Asia.Strategic support for the leading brands in the UB Beer portfolio - Kingfisher, UB, etc. As also, McDowell's alco-bev portfolio, including, McDowell's Celebration Rum (the #1 dark rum brand in India).Helped execute & mine an ethnographic study, with the JWT Planning Team: The Great Indian Family. Show less Cut one's teeth in brand strategy, on the data intense portfolio of GSK's Milk-food drink brands - the Horlicks portfolio & Boost. Identified the breakthrough insight into young, first-time mothers - for the relaunch of Junior Horlicks.Spotted & seized what later came to be regarded as the tipping point for the Pizza Hut business in India – the runaway launch of the Masala Pizza range. Breaching 70% of all sales, it triggered the menu localisation strategy in the industry.Launched Hero Buzz, which remained the largest selling brand of cycles for children, through 2001 & 2002. The launch TVC, broke all existing paradigms of how communication targeting kids need to be, and won a silver at the AAAI awards, in 2001.Strategic support for Nestle Milky Bar - the #1 white chocolate brand in India - for all their communication & new launches (like Milky Bar Eclairs, Choo, etc.), and helped consolidate it's leadership, even against launches from Cadbury's.Helped Timex re-launch itself, after it's disassociation from Titan, on a youthful, stylish, technology savvy platform - and business revived with that. Show less

  • AVP & Strategic Planning Director

    Mar 2002 - Sept 2004

  • Strategic Planning Director

    Jan 1999 - Mar 2002
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  Rediffusion Y&R

  Sept 2004 - Dec 2005

  Planning Head (South)

  Start & drive the Planning role in South zone, handling ING Vysya Life Insurance, McDowell’s whisky & vodka brands. New business wins: Thums Up & the entire Coca Cola portfolio in Andhra Pradesh, Nutrine Maha Lacto candy and Fresh & Honest filter coffee, in the Chennai office.

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  Lowe Lintas

  Dec 2005 - Oct 2006

  VP (Brand Planning) - South

  Start-up & lead a team of 3 Strategic Planners to support both Bangalore & Chennai offices.• Britannia’s biscuit brand portfolio. Led the launch of new, improved Milk Bikis, the brand architecture strategy for Tiger & its planned extensions, refreshed the communication for brands like Marie Gold, 50-50, etc.• Titan’s lifestyle brands. From identifying the nascent germination of Fastrack as a cult, youth brand on social media, to re-launching Sonata with MS Dhoni as the brand ambassador, to successful collection launches for Tanishq• Unilever’s Kissan. Led the brand architecture & strategy initiative for its forthcoming offerings* Strategised on & won the TI Cycles business for the Chennai office. Show less

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  Equitor Management Consulting

  Nov 2006 - Mar 2008

  Projects Director

  Equitor is a brand consultancy delivering multiples of enterprise value using the brand as the primary asset. Helped reach brand definitions that large SMBs, in Telecom, Mobile Phones, Mobile Retail could believe in, and worked with them to realise the business transformations.

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  Lenovo

  Mar 2008 - Jun 2015

  Head: WW Strategic Marketing Services

  Part of the core leadership team at, this unique & pioneering Shared Services model, the WW Marketing Hub, as the Strategy head. Was mandated to re-start & build a team to run the Worldwide Market Research & Intelligence function, managing a $3M budget:• Launched the Ideapad range with its 1st Global positioning campaign, driving Lenovo’s worldwide Consumer PC market share past 11% in 2010-11. A new campaign for the legendary ThinkPad, helped it claw back market share & growth after the 2008 recession. Strategised on both – from testing communication concepts across key markets, to co-authoring the briefs, to overseeing creative development. • Chronicled the rise of the Lenovo brand from being a nobody in most consumer markets, to being the No. 1 PC brand in the world. By managing the team delivering the WW Brand Tracker program, triangulating that story with market & social media intelligence, the brand health metrics + narrative was used by all stakeholders - from the WW CEO & CMO, all country CMOs, in their KPIs & media briefings. The Tracker program cadence grew from annual to continuous, and the country coverage grew from 8 to 20+ markets in my stint.• Lead multi-country primary research projects, like consumer segmentation studies (to identify the WW target segments for Lenovo), usage & attitude studies, conjoint studies for product development, etc., as also secondary research projects (like category and competitive deep dives), gaining insight into how tech devices were becoming ubiquitous, driving the digital revolution. Show less

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  Fueladream.com

  Jul 2015 - Mar 2017

  Chief Marketing Officer

  Fueladream.com is a crowdfunding platform and marketplace to raise funds for creative ideas and charitable causes. As the founding CMO in the start-up team, it was a complete strategy-to-execution experience:• In < 1 year of launch, the business touched GMV of Rs. 3 Cr., the brand organically garnered 10K+ fans on Facebook, and emerged as the fastest growing Crowdfunding platform in India.• Unlocked crowdfunding as a Go-to-Market channel for Consumer Innovations - a 1st in India• As another 1st in India, wielded PR for both brand & the business leverage, with a dominating presence (SOV of >60%)• Opened doors for business, developed the content marketing team & plans, working along with agencies for PR & digital marketing* Lead the design (UI & UX) & development of the product platform on a CodeIgniter PHP platform* Branded the business and designed its brand identity Show less

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  Self-Employed

  Aug 2017 - Dec 2018

  Independent Marketing Consultant

  * Orchestrated India’s 2nd highest crowdfunding campaign in Education for a Social Enterprise, Bharat Learn.* Crystallized the brand definition for a UK-based incubator of social enterprises, for their first public presence

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  Epsilon

  Jan 2019 - Nov 2022

  Senior Director, Strategic & Data Intelligence

  Part of the Strategic & Data Intelligence leadership team, designing data-driven strategies for Publicis agency clients in the US. By synthesising outputs from Research, Data Design & Analytics, Search & Social Listening to deliver Digital Marketing, CRM, NPD, and other marketing communication solutions. Leading Research, Planning & UX teams (25 people) in a shared services model from Bangalore, reporting into the Chief Intelligence Officer, DEG, US.Added Primary Quantitative & Qualitative disciplines to build a full-service Research capability, for robust marketing problem solving. The team delivered ~250 projects across 50+ categories in a year. The team contributed to > $15M of new business wins for DEG in 2021. Hiring diverse talent, cross-training them, collaborating with teams & vendors in US, brought agility & flex to handle diverse strategic challenges. Show less

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  FountHead Training

  Jun 2023 - now

  Chief Business & Marketing Officer

  We specialise in augmented & bespoke training solutions for large workforce transformations involving the prickliest of business challenges. Through innovations in content & technology.With a track record of over 20+ years, driving transformation agendas in blue-chip companies across sectors - FMCG / CPG, Financial Services, QSR, Pharma, etc.

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  FountHead Training

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  Chief Business & Marketing Officer