The role of an orchestrator
Shubha George enjoys setting up organizations, and has been doing so with elan all through her career. he readily admits that it was one of the reasons that made her take up the opportunity of setting up Red Fuse, WPP’s full-service integrated global agency dedicated to serving all of Colgate-Palmolive’s brands worldwide. “I do enjoy and thrive on setting up organizations,” says George, who was recently elevated to MD of Red Fuse Asia in addition to her role as CEO, Red Fuse India. Red Fuse is on WPP’s top priority list, and that does help George. “I knew I was doing a job that was important to WPP, so it was not something that was just there. I had worked in full-service, so I knew that there were many aspects that were good about it. And of course, being a key priority for WPP, it was the right thing to do,” observes George, a true blue WPP-ite. She has donned multiple hats in her career, and a new challenge in a known environment is not something that worries her: “I am fortunate that I have got these opportunities within WPP, that I could progress my career within the group,” she says. So what happens if a new challenge or opportunity comes her way after this? “Depends on what it is. I just started the Asia job, so that’s a new challenge,” she replies. George is no stranger to setting up new organizations. Way back in 2001-2002, as the GM of Mindshare Bengaluru, she had to get the office up and running. Then came setting up MEC and Red Fuse. George believes the leader of an integrated team should definitely have an open mind and be embracing of different types of talent and working styles. At the same time, the leader should be able to give the team space and energy to do their best. The biggest high for George at Red Fuse has been that the unit was up and running seamlessly within the first six months as one integrated team. “I don’t think anyone expected us to do it so quickly. It is only when you put together a team like this that you realize what it takes to put it together because everyone comes in with a certain level of apprehension. I can tell you the biggest apprehension was of my erstwhile MEC team, that moved just one floor. All of us get so attached to our little corners where we do our work that to bring together a team of different types of people from different agencies, physically from different places and to co-locate them into one place and to say go out and start work is far more difficult than we may think, But for me, that was the biggest high. Our staff attrition rate is really low. We have a happy bunch of people here, who want to be in a Red Fuse kind of integrated team,” says George. Self-confessedly not one to look at the long term, George aims to confidently say at the end of the year that she is well established with regards to her additional remit and has made a positive change to the overall business for Colgate-Palmolive in Asia. George will continue to be based out of Mumbai and report to New York-based, Stephen Forcione, Global CEO, Red Fuse Communications, as she looks forward to contribute to Colgate-Palmolive’s success in the region by “efficiently and creatively rosspollinating ideas and processes across and between, people and offices”.
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