Josy Paul joins WPP Group

Top ranking Creative Director Josy Paul, who resigned as chairman and national creative director of ad agency David last month, has been retained by WPP group.

Ad agency JWT (previously HTA) today confirmed that Paul is joining the agency as its national creative director.

Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT said Paul's appointment will also be accompanied with the promotion of Agnello Dias to the post of national creative director.

Currently, Dias is the senior vice-president and executive creative director of JWT.

However, the appointments are also accompanied with a departure as Bruce Matchett, the person who is been at the helm of creative duties at JWT India for the last 18 months, will be going back to Australia.

Harris said the appointment of the two national creative directors was required to manage the large creative team at the agency. JWT has 300 people employed in its creative departments all over the country. "Both will be based in Mumbai. Because of the scale and scope of operations we felt the need to have the two people at the helm," said Harris. As a part of restructuring its creative team, the agency has appointed executive creative directors (ECD) for each office.

Mumbai, for instance, has 6 ECDs while, Delhi has 4 ECDs and so on. JWT handles more than 200 brands including Pepsi, Hero Honda, Sunsilk among others. Paul, who co-founded RMG David along with Ogilvy's Madhukar Sabnavis, was chosen to lead RMG David, a WPP group boutique agency when the ad honcho Rajiv Agarwal quit suddenly.

Under Paul's leadership, the agency which was then renamed Brand David (RMG, short for Relationship Marketing group was dropped) won several high profile accounts from Alpenliebe to Enfield.

Even in cases like Asahi Glass when the agency fought Goliaths like its parent Ogilvy, Brand David emerged victorious.

When WPP group decided to merge David with another group agency Bates-Enterprise, Paul was no longer part of what was called "the smallest worldwide agency". The exit of Paul created a furore among David's clients, with some like Asahi Glass moving their accounts out of David, after the departure of Paul was made public.