ANECDOTES FROM THE AD CLUB IN MY 20 YEARS
Bipin R Pandit, COO, The Ad Club & Founder, Khumaar walks us through his 20 years at The Ad Club and his learnings from his different bosses over the years. He also talks about his other passion, the musical show Khumaar BY BIPIN R PANDIT COO, The Ad Club & Founder, Khumaar How did I land up at the Ad Club? Twenty years after walking through the hallowed portals of the institution, I still recall the day when I was interviewed by Ramesh Narayan, then President of the Ad Club, who later appointed me in the position. I had started my career with the Baroda Rayon Corporation Limited in the Accounts Department, moving to Castrol India Ltd after that and putting in a solid 10 years there. All through the years, I remained inclined towards communication, loved networking and different languages. Moreover, I discovered that I was a people’s person and loved organizing events. Thus I did a course in Advertising and Public Relations and moved to The Advertising Club. Till date, I have had 16 bosses at the Ad Club – each a stalwart in his or her own field. Imagine the enrichment and learnings I imbibed from them! My stint has also been full of fun incidents, which perhaps did not seem as funny when they actually took place. While organizing a major Ad Club show once in the early years, I got the shock of my life when the trophy-maker messed up badly. He entrusted the job to his juniors and went off on a holiday. Instead of making 8-inch trophies, the juniors delivered trophies on the event day – each only 3 inches in height! How we managed to salvage the situation is another story. LEARNINGS FROM BOSSES My first boss Ramesh Narayan once told me that it is wise in our business to under-promise and over-deliver. I always aim to do that. Ramesh is gentle, methodical, punctual, organized and extremely dependable - one feels enriched with every meeting. Kaushik Roy is a man with an artistic bent of mind and good oratory skills. Under Kaushik, ably supported by Sumit Roy, we managed to organize the very demanding India Advertising Festival. From Pradeep Guha, I learnt to be specific while instructing people, picked up clarity of thought and fast decision-making. He is innovative and dynamic, and led us at AdAsia Jaipur. Then came MG Parameswaran aka ‘Ambi’, who brought to the Ad Club an extremely successful series of workshops called Continuous Education programme. One learnt a lot just by listening to him. It is a sheer delight listening to Bhaskar Das too – he is better than any management guru. The bonus: you can pick up a lot of new words and use them while talking to others! High on energy, scholarly and fun to work with – that’s Bhaskar Das for you. Kalpana Rao was a fantastic boss and a very good human being. Fair and gentle, she is a wonderful person to know and we remain in touch and have an occasional meal together. Shashi Sinha and I have a very special equation. We worked more like friends. It is to his credit that we branched out to Delhi for judging the Effies. He enjoys a great fan following in the industry, and I am no exception. Pratap Bose and I always discussed cricket with great passion. He was a fast bowler during his college days, and I a cricket buff. He is a music lover too, and loves good food - another common passion! What can one say about Raj Nayak! He is everyone’s best friend and a huge supporter of industry initiatives. He will drive you to do bigger and newer things and motivate you to think differently. Lovable and emotional, he is truly a people’s man. I enjoyed my stint under him. He always addressed me as his Lakhan, chota bhai of Ram! Under Vikram Sakhuja, this is my first year, but surely there is a lot to learn, especially in this business of brands and rich content. I am sure I will be hugely enriched at the end of his two-year term. MY PASSION, KHUMAAR My other passion is my brand, the musical show Khumaar. I have a bunch of hardcore professionals singing, and now I have a segment called ‘Khumaar ki Khoj’ in which I launch budding talent. A couple of years back, we launched a girl from Nagpur by the name Shrinidhi Ghatate, and today she is a playback singer. Another singer, Mona Kamat, is also into playback singing. The platform has done wonders for her. Khumaar this year was on Saturday, Feb 10 and I hope you were part of it! @ FEEDBACK adclub@vsnl.com
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