Straight talk

Venkatachari Jagannathan
07 September 2003

OM Kotak Mahindra Life corporate communications manager Lubna Markar believes at times of crises it is necessary to maintain a steady flow of information

Lubna Markar, 29, is the corporate communications manager of OM Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company. She is a psychology graduate with a diploma in mass communications.

She first joined GCI, the PR division of Grey Worldwide, and worked there for five years before moving on to her current assignment. Markar likes to teach; she lectures at NM College, Mumbai. Markar has also taught creative thinking to school kids as part of the Erewhon programme. Markar loves reading and travelling.

Excerpts from an interview:

You were earlier with a PR agency. What are the differences between the two roles you handled?
As regards the job profile, fundamentally there isn't much difference between the two; the scope of work for both these roles is similar. But there is one major difference: the crux of any difference that could occur in both these roles. In an agency scenario you work as a partner with your client, yet because you are still an outside entity it has implications on the functioning of the job. Plus, usually one team works on more than one client. This is a business reality no matter how large the team is and this does effect the workload and sometimes the 'comeback time' on jobs besides the debateable priority of clients issue.