Leo Burnett Malaysia extends planning team by hiring Milan Agnihotri and Anil Jayachandran

Leo Burnett Malaysia has appointed Milan Agnihotri as chief catalyst – creative strategy and innovations and Anil Jayachandran as strategic planning director on Maxis to the agency.

In their new roles, both Agnihotri (second left) and Jayaachandram (right) will report directly to Tan Kien Eng, CEO, Leo Burnett Malaysia and will team up with head of knowledge and strategic planning Sutapa Bhattacharya, planner Nicole Yeoh and senior strategic planner Nura Yusof to form the largest senior strategy team in Malaysia.

“The appointments of Milan and Anil are in line with Leo Burnett Malaysia’s double-digit growth over the past few years and underscores our commitment and continual investment into strengthening its understanding of the market and consumer’s insights. With the senior strategy team, we are looking forward to what the team’s combined wealth of experience and knowledge could bring for our clients going forward,” said Tan.

In his role as chief catalyst – creative strategy and innovations, Agnihotri has dual responsibilities. As innovations champion, he explores truth about people and as creative strategist, he partners with creative teams in conceiving, nurturing and protecting brand-building ideas and acts that can impact people’s behavior.

Before taking up the role at Leo Burnett Malaysia, Agnihotri spent two decades in the area of planning creative communications and developing branding strategies for indigenous as well as MNC brands. His extensive experience includes stints at various MNC creative agencies in planning and management roles across Singapore, Shanghai, New Delhi and Mumbai. Having worked in South East Asia, China and India helped Agnihotri gain a keen understanding of Asian consumers and brands.

His strategic planning experience spans across consumer electronics, telecommunications, destination branding, country branding, banks and financial institutions, FMCG, tourism, fast food, beverages, apparels, sports goods, cars and healthcare. He has planned campaigns for brands/ organizations like Samsung, Petronas, Maxis, Coca Cola, Nestle, Kraft, L’Oreal, Master Card, Scorpio, UNICEF, WHO amongst others.

Outside of work, Agnihotri has been a visiting faculty on advertising and branding to some of world’s leading business school – Indian Institute of Ahmendabad (India), IIM Kohzikode (India), Beijing Jiaotong University (China), SP Jain (Dubai), Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad (MICA India). This association with academics has also motivated him to publish papers in the area of consumer behavior and advertising. He holds a master’s degree in Business Administration and a doctoral degree in Communications.

Jayachandran has over 20 years of experience in marketing, advertising and consulting across most categories and services with emphasis on insights mining and creative linkage, brand strategy planning, corporate Identity and architecture, consumer and media research, media effectiveness analysis across channels. His extensive work experience across MNC creative and media agencies was accumulated in markets including India, Egypt, Dubai with regional coverage across the Middle East North Africa region.

Some of the prominent clients Jayachandran has worked on include General Motors, Coca Cola, Unilever Foods & Beverages and Personal Care, Nestle, Toshiba, LG, Exxon Mobil, Vodafone, McDonalds, Motorola, Microsoft, BAT, Tourism Department of India, Egypt, Bahrain, Industries Department for India, Egypt E-Gov for Abu Dhabi and Bahrain Tourism.

Photo credits L to R: Nura Yusof, Milan Agnihotri, Sutapa Bhattacharya, Nicole Yeoh, Anil Jayachandran