IMPACT’S CLASS OF 2021

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Last week, IMPACT unveiled its list of 30 under 30 for 2021, revealing the brightest young achievers in the industry including dynamic young entrepreneurs, leaders of influencer marketing firms, as well as talent from ad-tech, design and advertising. The eighth edition of IMPACT Top 30 Under 30, an initiative to pick the most talented individuals aged 30 years and under, from the India media and advertising ecosystem, is also representative of the diversity and domains across the industry. The big winners this year were Wavemaker and Dentsu Webchutney, which saw five names each on the list. The list has been released on the back of what has been a watershed year for the industry, and therefore the talent that features achievers who have really moved the needle on their clients’ and organisations’ business and been true game changers.
While almost 50% of the list includes talent between the ages of 28 and 30 years, the three youngest industry stars are 25 years of age. The list also sees representation from other agencies across the media, digital and creative spectrum such as Mindshare, BBH India, DDB Mudra, Dentsu, Wunderman Thompson and Essence. The list is truly representative of the direction the industry is moving towards, since it features achievers who are proficient in domains like programmatic, ad-tech, design and content creation. It features winners in content creation, design and influencer marketing with names from Pocket Aces, Elephant Design, WHOppl and OpraahFx. What is also heartening to note is the representation of women – 14 of the achievers on the list are female, which indicates that the industry will see a good number of women leaders emerge in the future.

Shining bright on the virtual stage
The IMPACT Top 30 Under 30 list for 2021 was unveiled at a virtual soiree that was led by Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, exchange4media and BW Businessworld. The virtual gathering saw the young industry stars deliver passionate and heart-warming messages on video to their mentors, peers, members of the jury and other industry leaders in attendance. Members of the jury also made the time to attend, and shared words of advice and thoughts on the kind of talent that is mushrooming in the industry today. The young winners shared learnings from their journey so far, their career goals and some even used the platform to petition for greater diversity and gender representation in the industry. InMobi is the Co-Gold Partner for the IMPACT Top 30 Under 30 list, 2021.

‘A TRULY EXHILARATING EXPERIENCE’

Avinash Pandey, CEO of ABP Network and Jury Chair for IMPACT Top 30 under 30, 2021 shared a few thoughts on his experience and the quality of talent he reviewed in a video address to the audience during the launch event
“It has been truly an exhilarating experience, second year in a row, as the jury chair of IMPACT 30 Under 30. The entries were diverse; I saw more and more entrepreneurs entering this time. There were lot of people from the media side, which was earlier not that many in terms of numbers. And I saw some very fine creative work too. I thank the jury members because they were the ones who had a very strong opinion on the candidates that they selected. And it’s not easy to select 30 out of 120 names that we finally saw. In my opinion, almost all of them are quite brilliant, but those 30 that we selected certainly are the best lot. And I congratulate all of you who are part of this IMPACT 30 Under 30 list, and thank you to all the jury members for giving me a very interesting time.”

Jury and the selection process
Earlier last month, a high powered jury led by jury chair
Avinash Pandey, CEO, ABP Network discussed over 120 nominations in a virtual meet. The other members who served on the jury were ...

Aditya Tandon Vice President, Hindi Cluster News18 Network
Ajay Gupte CEO South Asia, Wavemaker
Anusha Shetty Chairman & CEO, Grey
Aparna Bhawal Vice-President, Marketing, Hindustan Times
Archana Jain Managing Director, PR Pundit
Ashish Chakravarty Exec Director & Head of Creative, McCann Worldgroup India
Ashwini Deshpande Co-founder & Director, Elephant Design
Bindu Sethi Chief Strategy Officer, Wunderman Thompson
Deepshikha Dharmaraj CEO, Genesis BCW
Garima Khandelwal Chief Creative Officer, Mullen Lintas
Jai Lala COO, Zenith
Lara Balsara Executive Director, Madison World
Lavin Punjabi President & CEO, Affinity
Mohit Joshi CEO, Havas Media India
Neena Dasgupta CEO & Director, Zirca
Pooja Jauhari CEO, The Glitch
Puneet Gupt COO, Times Internet
Rajneesh Chaturvedi Co-founder, ads2OTT
Rubeena Singh CEO, iProspect
Sameer Seth Marketing Director, Dolby India
Santosh Padhi CCO & Founder, Taproot Dentsu
Shripad Kulkarni Founder, Shripad Kulkarni & associates
S Yesudas Co-founder and MD, Y&A Transformation
Sukesh Nayak Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy India
Sunil Mohapatra Chief Revenue Officer, Daily Hunt
Tanvi Shukla News Editor, Mirror Now
Vaishali Verma CEO, Initiative India|

The names on the final IMPACT Top 30 Under 30 list were chosen on the basis of the body of work done, leadership skills exhibited, testimonials from clients and managers and other contributions to the industry.
Here is the much awaited final list of IMPACT’s Top 30 Under 30 for 2021. Names are in alphabetical order, and designations as submitted in entries.

http://digital.impactonnet.com/3044415/Impact/Volume-17-Issue-43#dual/16/2