With less than a month remaining for The ABBY Awards 2024 powered by One Show to kickstart at The Goafest in Mumbai, the jury chairs for categories like Brand Activation and Promotion, Broadcaster, Publisher, Young Maverick ABBY and Green ABBY have been announced.
Joining the coveted gala as Jury Chair for Brand Activation and Promotion category is DDB Mudra Group’s Rahul Mathew; Broadcaster category is ABP’s Avinash Pandey; Publisher category is TOI’s Sudha Natarajan; Young Maverick ABBY category is Dinshaw’s Dairy Foods’ Malvika Mehra and Green ABBY category is Ex-Ladyfinger Chief Tista Sen.
A strong believer of the notion that creativity isn’t a department but an attitude, Mathew, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group, has been appointed the Jury Chair for Brand Activation and Promotion Category at The ABBY Awards 2024.
Under his leadership, the DDB Mudra Group became the first Indian agency to be crowned APAC agency of the year at Spikes Asia. In fact, the work from the agency has won 4 Grand Prix at Spikes Asia in the last three years. Back in 2019, DDB Mudra also became the first agency in the world to win the D&AD Impact Prize Fund.
The Jury Chair for Broadcaster Category, Avinash Pandey, CEO, ABP Network, has over 28 years of experience in Media, News, Advertising and Digital. He is also the President of News Broadcasters & Digital Association (NBDA), President of International Advertising Association (India Chapter) and is currently serving as Director of Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA).
Apart from this, he is also the Founding Director of ABP Studios, which has produced several award-winning films and TV series.
Sudha Natarajan, Director Response, Times of India Group, who has been appointed the Jury Chair for the Publisher category, comes with more than 25 years of experience, with 13 of them being in leadership positions, in marketing, advertising, and media organizations.
In her role as Director, she has been looking after a diversified revenue portfolio, including the Digital offerings for Bennett, Coleman and Co. Earlier on, she also served as the CEO of Lintas Initiative Media and served on various juries like Festival of Media Asia and Cannes.
Malvika Mehra, Creative Head- Marketing, Dinshaw’s Dairy Foods, who has come aboard as the Jury Chair for Young Maverick ABBY Category, in her career spanning three decades, has donned many hats across advertising and marketing.
Leading the brand mandate as Chief Creative Officer at Grey and Dentsu, successfully partnering clients and building famous brands like Bingo! at Ogilvy and running her own independent venture, Tomorrow Creative Lab, Mehra has moved on to being an independent consultant and brand partner to CEOs and founders.
She has been invited thrice as a juror for Cannes Lions across categories like print, film and design as well as been a part of other eminent global juries for advertising and design including Clio, Spikes Asia, Dubai Lynx, Kyoorius apart from Abby awards.
Being the Jury Chair for Green ABBY Category, Tista Sen, who had recently called it a day at Rediffusion’s women-led agency- Ladyfinger as CEO, has been ranked among the 20 most creative people in Asia and worked on campaigns that have won metals at Cannes, Clio, Ad-Fest, One Show, D&AD, Clio, Spikes Asia including the Grand Prix and Gold for her work on Lost Daughters in 2022.
Over the years, she has been on the jury of several global advertising festivals including Cannes, D&AD, Clio, LIA, Gerety Awards, Spikes and The New York Festival. In 2015, she had the pleasure of being the only Asian on the inaugural Glass Jury at Cannes that honours gender diversity in communication.
