Taproot Dentsu India co-founders Agnello Dias and Santosh Padhi exit the agency

Taproot Dentsu India co-founders Agnello Dias and Santosh Padhi have both resigned from the agency within days of each other.

Dias stepped down from active involvement to be a consultant to the agency on key brands, but four days ago decided to end his relationship with the agency. Padhi has today also come to the same decision and has resigned.

Padhi and Dias launched Taproot in India 12 years ago and this was acquired by Dentsu in 2012. Both co-founders had a lock-in of 5 years and their 100% shares transfer and hand over happened back in 2017.

Said Padhi: “In January Ayesha took over as CEO of Taproot Dentsu, Shashank Lanjekar got into a leadership role of National Planning Head, and a new creative structure of four ECDs were formed to take the agency’s cutting edge creative legacy forward.”

“The new leadership team at Taproot Dentsu sets the tone for the future of the agency. They are a talented bunch of minds and I am confident they will continue to drive Taproot dentsu’s creative reputation going forward. I was lucky and blessed to have been showered with so much love and respect from the dentsu family over my wonderful 10-year-long journey. I preserve some beautiful memories which will always be close to my heart. My best wishes to the young & dynamic network for their further journey.”said Padhi.

Over the past few months Dentsu India has pulled all their Indian agencies under one optimised service line – dentsu Creative India. The agency brands that come together under this new name are Dentsu Webchutney, Taproot Dentsu, WATConsult, Perfect Relations, Isobar, Dentsu One, Dentsu India and Dentsu Impact.

On Friday Dentsu Creative India announced the appointment of Ajay Gahlaut as group chief creative officer of Dentsu Creative. Gahlaut, with over 27 years of experience, was previously with Publicis India in the CCO and MD role before leaving in June 2020.

Over the last 12 years, Taproot Dentsu has risen to become one of India’s most prominent creative agencies, notching up several accolades along the way.

In its very first year 2010, it was the only agency in Asia to win a Gold Clio. The same year Taproot has been rated the No. 1 Independent Agency from India at Cannes and ranked amongst the Top 20 Independent Agencies in the World at Cannes.

The agency has topped Gunn Report in India twice and been in the top three for several years. They scored a record 4 Gold Lions at Cannes 2013 for their Times Of India Farmer Suicide Campaign and a Cannes Gold for the “I am Mumbai” TV Campaign in 2014. Most recently, in 2021 they were the most “Awarded Agency from India” at D&AD and Adfest.

The agency also created the Adidas Odds campaign for Para-athletes, one of India’s most awarded campaigns.