The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) concluded one of its most interesting annual general meetings on July 30, 2010. The reason: President Election. And the results did not disappoint anyone. The competition was tougher than what most would have expected. Challenger Sandeep Goyal missed the seat by two votes. Of the 94 voting members, 48 votes were cornered by Nagesh Alai, the man who would have automatically taken the President’s Chair had it not been for the unexpected challenge coming from Goyal. And Goyal’s camp had left no stone unturned. Securing 46 votes was no mean feat in the AAAI elections.
The surprise package of the evening, however, was Lynn de Souza, who was appointed Vice President. The officers are elected for the year 2010-11. Other elected members of the Executive Committee for the ensuing year are Neville Gomes, Multimedia Aquarius; Pranav Premnarayen, Prem Associates Advertising & Marketing; Tanya Goyal, Dentsu Marcom; Sam Balsara, Madison Communications; Umesh Shrikhande, Contract Advertising (India); Srinivasan K Swamy, RK Swamy BBDO; Kunal Lalani, Crayons Advertising Ltd; Ganesh Baliga, Fifth Estate Communications; Surajit Nag, Advertising & Sales Promotion Company; Vivek Srivastava, Innocean Worldwide Communication; Kamal Basu, Saatchi & Saatchi; Nakul Chopra, Publicis Communications; and Ashish Bhasin, Carat India.
Immediate Past President, Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT India, will be the ex-officio member of the new AAAI Executive Committee.
This is one of the first elections with an official voting process that the AAAI has witnessed in many years now. Prior to this, the President’s chair was automatically taken by the AAAI Vice President, except for cases where the VP declined to step in the President’s role.
exchange4media readers would recall that following Colvyn Harris’ (JWT India CEO) decision to not continue with the customary second year of a AAAI Presidential tenure, Sandeep Goyal challenged AAAI norms and stood for elections. This followed an aggressive campaign, where the working of the AAAI was extensively deliberated on, and the Association was said to ignore the smaller players of the industry, and was slow to respond to many industry issues.
Many industry observers had agreed that most of these points were valid. It remains to be seen how the AAAI approaches these issues that would have impacted the perception of many in the industry.
