Hemant Misra is president, north and east, Mudra Communications

Based in Delhi he will now be spearheading the operations of the agency in Delhi (north) and Kolkata (east) branches, managing a combined billing of over Rs 150 crore. Misra started his career in a small creative shop called Milestones in 1986. He joined Mudra in 1992 as associate account director and has been with them since.

Misra has been involved in several brand launches, notable among them is Nestle''s Polo (mint with a hole), a campaign that was highly awarded and applauded across cities, ad forums and across categories like film, press and outdoor etc. It won the Campaign of the Year Award and was also instrumental in Mudra winning the A&M Agency of the Year Award in 1995.

His work portfolio includes clients like PanParag, Cerelac, Orient PSPO, the Oberoi group of hotels, NIC, Samsung CTVs, ministry of tourism, Lancer, Ruffle''s Lays and Bar One. Misra was instrumental in developing the brand McDonald''s in India and even today he is closely involved with strategy and creative development of the brand.

The Advertising Works (the precursor to the EFFIES) held by Ad Club, Bombay, recognised Misra''s efforts on Orient PSPO by awarding the Gold to the PSPO case study in 1997. This small brand from Calcutta won over heavyweights like Indian Airlines, Britannia and LML. A Certificate of Merit followed this from EFFIES for the McDonald''s case study presented in 2001.

The Mudra group, with a client roster of 150 clients today, consists of two advertising agencies, (Mudra and Interact Vision) one media services agency (OMS) and six strategic business divisions operating out of a network of eight cities. With an equity partnership with DDB Worldwide and a portfolio of some of India''s best brands, the company has won several awards over the past years for its outstanding contribution to the advertising world.

Mudra''s strategic business divisions consists of MagIndia, which is an archives of Indian advertising, Primesite (outdoor media), Digital Branding Solutions, Mudra Videotec (TV and software production and marketing), Mudra Pharma, One to One Communications (relationship marketing). Apart from being its founder, Mudra is also the driving force behind MICA, a premier postgraduate school in advertising and communications.