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| AGK calls it a day at Mudra |
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| Business India,
February 26, 2003
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THE DOYEN of the largest Indian advertising agency Mudra Communications Limited, A G K Krishnamurthy has finally decided to call it quits. With his retirement, the Mudra headquarters would now move to Mumbai after operating in Ahmedabad for 23 years. Mr. Madhukar Kamath of Bates India is taking over from Mr. Krishnamurthy as managing director and CEO. No chairman has been appointed yet.
Mr. A G Krishnamurthy, who had minced no words in denying the story carried by ET earlier this month that he had any plans to quit, the advertising legend today admitted that it was in fact the ET story which was "a trigger and prompted him to think seriously for life beyond Mudra."
"Retirement and succession issues were on my mind for a while but the concretisation of the action plan has happened post the ET story," AGK told ET.
Confirming his plans to retire from Mudra on March 30, 2003, AGK said that "it has been a long and great innings, founding Mudra and nurturing them into market leadership positions has truly been a once in a lifetime privilege and experience, " he said.
As for his future plans, AGK said that he would be dividing his time between Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Hyderabad. He would be working as an advisor to chairman of Reliance group Mr. Mukesh Ambani for the Reliance Infocomm brand. "'I would be spending around 15-20 days in Mumbai working on this new brand, while the rest of my time would go in working for an NGO based in Hyderabad," he added.
The founder member of this Rs 715-crore, Ahmedabad based advertising agency, Mr. Krishnamurthy's name has become synonymous with the name Mudra.
Born in Vinukonda, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, AGK, graduated in History at the University of Andhra Pradesh. Having been nurtured in small towns of Tenali, Bapalta, Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, he believes in carrying his "middleclass" values in his personal and professional life.
AGK landed in Ahmedabad in November 1968, to work with Giraben Sarabhai in Calico Mills. If it was Dhirubhai who inspired him to dream, it was Giraben who initiated him to the world of advertising and placed him in Shilpi in 1973, a well-known advertising agency then. It was in Shilpi that AGK took basic lessons in advertising.
In 1976, AGK moved to Reliance as its advertising manager and set up its advertising department which later, on March 25 1980, with 14 people became the agency - Mudra Communications.
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