When Dentsu India chairman Sandeep Goyal began shooting emails and flyers seeking support for his candidature in the run-up to the July 30 elections for the post of the president of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), his rival Nagesh Alai chose to maintain silence. It wasn’t arrogance arising out of having known and worked for the body for 15 years, say Alai’s friends and colleagues, which led him to keep a low profile. It was simply his style.
Fifty-two-year-old Alai is now the president-elect of the body, winning by a small margin of two votes. The man has chalked out his priorities for the next one year for which he will hold office. “The first thing,” he says, “would be to keep the body together. “Too much has been flowing in the run-up to the elections. It’s time we all come together and work as one cohesive unit,” he says. “I am a great believer in consensus.”
Nagesh Alai, the new president of AAAI
