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NEW DELHI : British advertising agency Ogilvy has announced the promotion of Devika Bulchandani as the global chief executive officer of the WPP network company.
Bulchandani, who was the agency’s global president and CEO of Ogilvy North America before her elevation, will take over the CEO’s role from Andy Main, who will serve as a senior adviser until the year-end.
She will now be responsible for all aspects of Ogilvy’s business across 131 offices in 93 countries which look at advertising, public relations, consulting, and health units. Bulchandani will also join WPP’s executive committee.
Bulchandani was born and brought up in Amritsar and is one of four siblings. She studied at Welham Girls’ School in Dehradun, followed by St Xavier’s in Mumbai. She also did a Master’s in Communications from the University of Southern California in 1991. She moved to the US after getting married and has worked there since.
Over the past two years, Ogilvy won new business with brands including Absolut, Enterprise Holdings, World of Hyatt, TD Bank, FEMA, New York Philharmonic, and Audi of America.
Bulchandani also played a key role in WPP being named as Coca-Cola Co.’s global marketing network partner. Recently it earned the position of ‘Network of the Year’ at the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for the first time since 2016 and secured the same honour from The One Show and Campaign magazine. Additionally, it also became the only agency network to secure top rankings on both WARC’s Creative 100 and Effective 100 lists, the company said in a statement.
“Devika is a champion of creativity who brings passion, purpose, and an uncompromising focus on generating impact to everything she does. In partnership with Andy and Liz Taylor, she has been instrumental in Ogilvy’s recent growth and development," said Mark Read, CEO of WPP.
Prior to joining Ogilvy, Bulchandani spent 26 years at McCann in various leadership roles, including president of McCann North America.
She was the driving force behind Mastercard’s long-running “Priceless" campaign as well as “True Name," a first-of-its-kind feature launched in 2019 that empowers transgender and non-binary people to display their chosen name on their Mastercard.