Radhika Shapoorjee
President

Radhika Shapoorjee is the President of IPAN Hill & Knowlton, one of India's most respected public relations consultancies. She has over 20 years of experience across Public Relations, Advertising, Crisis communication, Issue Management and Brand development. Her expertise straddles various domains, including Political PR, FMCG, Automobiles, Real Estate, Financial Services, and Consumer Entertainment, to name a few.

She has initiated ‘strategy-based’ innovative PR solutions in India. She provides strategic counsel and advice to various companies and brands, addressing category issues in the life Insurance, renewable energy and biotechnology domain; raising debates and created long term strategic platforms for brands and companies such as Hindustan Unilever, Citibank, Max New York Life Insurance, Blackstone, World Bank, Intel, Monsanto, Viacom (Colors)and ITC. She has also conducted messaging and crisis training workshops for clients.

Most recently, she and her team at IPAN Hill & Knowlton have contributed to the landmark victory of the Congress Party in Indian National General Elections of 2009.

Prior to IPAN Hill & Knowlton, Radhika was Chief Innovation & Quality Officer at Genesis Burson-Marsteller where she provided strategic and positioning counsel to clients like Max New York Life, National Geographic Channel, BBC World, Indian School of Business, Glaxo SmithKline and HP. Besides this, she was involved in service quality management as well as training initiatives within the firm. She also provided media training and conducted messaging workshops for some of the firm’s largest clients.

Her early career included nine years in advertising at FCB-Ulka, where, as Client Services Director, she was involved in strategic planning and the creation of multimedia campaigns for large national and international brands.

Radhika is a graduate in History (Honours) from St. Stephen's College. She has played national level basketball, and is an avid swimmer.

Vinod Moorthy
Vice President, Mumbai

Vinod Moorthy heads the Mumbai office as General Manager.  He has been associated with the Indian communications industry for over 12 years and was previously with Sampark PR as Associate Partner.

At Sampark, his portfolio included a wide spectrum of clients in the media, auto, aviation, insurance, financial services, IT, wine and jewellery sectors.

Prior to Sampark, he headed the Mumbai operations of Good Relations (GRI).  His portfolio there included retail, entertainment, FMCG, consumer durables, media, hospitality, tourism, lifestyle and fashion.

He started his career in 1994 in the then nascent and still evolving Indian Public Relations industry,  with GRI in Mumbai.  In his first seven-year stint with GRI, he experienced rapid career growth, rising from a Trainee to Director of GRI’s South India operations (1999-2001).

He then returned to Mumbai to put in a two year stint (2001-2003) heading GCI, the PR Division of Grey Worldwide as General Manager.  Delivering integrated communications solutions to Grey’s clients at a national level was amongst his key responsibilities at GCI.  Subsequently, he moved back to Good Relations as Director in charge of its Mumbai operations (2003-2005).

He has also undertaken media training for spokespersons of top Indian corporates and implemented crisis management systems and strategies for leading companies.  His recommendations for Crisis Management case studies have been published in Indian business periodicals.

He is a graduate of Physics from the University of Mumbai and has a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration, specializing in Marketing, from the prestigious Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Lavang Asthana Khare
Associate Vice President, New Delhi

Lavang Asthana Khare heads the IPAN Hill & Knowlton, office in New Delhi. She has been with the communication industry for over 14 years and has hands on experience and understanding of communications from both client and the communications agency end.

She has worked across categories including marketing, technology, telecom, financial, healthcare, retail and public affairs. With excellent leadership and communication skills, she is able to provide strategic direction and customized solutions. 

Lavang has an in-depth understanding of corporate communication,  brand building,  advertising & public relations. Her core strengths include internal and external communications with multiple stakeholders i.e. strategic media relations, crisis management, corporate social responsibility programs, coalition building and opinion mobilization among influencer groups.

Before joining back LINOpinion, she worked for the Business Software Alliance (BSA) as Regional Marketing Head of the India Operations. Key focus areas were creating awareness on Intellectual Property Rights and benefits of software licensing best practices

She has been associated to LinOpinion, Lintas PR division for almost a decade with two innings. Her second innings was as Seniorr Communications Director for Northern and Eastern Region.  She was responsible for business growth, client  and team management, Crisis Counseling etc.  Member of the national management council that is responsible for setting up new practice areas.

Some of the brands/ corporate handled during her career were Raymond, World Gold Council, Revlon, Dish TV, Hindustan Times, Tilda Rice, Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Bose Electronics, ITC, Hindustan Unilever, Viacom 18 – MTV, Vh1, Nick,  Sony Pix, SAB, Religare, Standard Chartered Mutual Funds,  Principal Mutual Fund, Cellebrum, Pyramid Consulting, Apollo, Oriflame, U.K. Modi Group and Spice Communication.

She is a Post Graduate in English Literature with a  Advanced Diploma in Mass Communication (Public Relations and Journalism), Xavier Institute of Communication (XIC), Mumbai.

Anuradha Lakshman
Associate Vice President, Chennai

Anuradha Lakshman comes to IPAN Hill & Knowlton with professional and academic experience in the US. At IPAN Hill & Knowlton, Lakshman manages the Chennai operations. She has over eight years of PR experience in the areas of strategic counselling, marketing communications, media relations, crisis communications, investor relations, employee relations, event management, trade shows, community relations and industry analyst relations.

Currently, Lakshman oversees PR campaigns for the Murugappa Group, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company Limited, Parry’s Sugar, TI Cycles, Carborundum Universal Limited, Shriram Group and PSA SICAL. She is also the team lead for many leading IT players such as Ramco Systems, Scope e-knowledge Center, Maveric Systems, Ajuba Solutions, Servion Global and TAKE Solutions.

Lakshman primarily joined the Chennai office to head the client servicing team for Ford India. She played a prominent role in the launch of the Ford Mondeo. Past IT clients included Pinnacle Info Solutions, Accurum, Kanbay, Vision Healthsource – A Perot Systems, Saksoft and Bridage Corporation. She also executed an effective PR plan to position Bharatmatrimony.com as the leading matrimony portal in India. She has also steered an effective stakeholder communications and crisis management plan for Population Services International (PSI) during the launch of their direct and incisive HIV/AIDs awareness campaign in the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

Prior to joining IPAN Hill & Knowlton, Lakshman worked at Stirling & Karbo, a high-tech public relations and marketing communications agency based in California. She has contributed to the creation and execution of PR programmes for several high profile start-up accounts including Juniper Networks, Sentient Networks, Equinix, Packeteer and Sigma Networks.  Addition-ally, Lakshman worked at The Algan Group and was responsible for the creation and execution of a marketing communications plan and writing of collateral materials such as press releases, press backgrounders, newsletters, brochures, fliers and web pages. She has also done internships with Putnam Investments and Birmingham Associates in Massachusetts, USA.

She has a master's degree in public relations from Boston University in Massachusetts, USA and a bachelor's degree in economics from Pfeiffer University in North Carolina, USA. She is also an avid tennis player. She was a national-level player for many years and went to study in the US on a tennis scholarship.

Sandesh Advani
Senior Associate Director & Business Head, Bangalore

Sandesh Advani has been with IPAN Hill & Knowlton since May 2004 and comes to IPAN Hill & Knowlton with over eight years of experience spanning the fields of marketing communications, advertising, product development; corporate communications and public relations.

At IPAN Hill & Knowlton, Advani is an Associate Director & Business Head - Bangalore, providing strategic counsel and programme execution for clients such as Fidelity Fund Management, Castrol India, Kingfisher Airlines, United Breweries, Aviva Life Insurance, Vertu International, UTI Venture Funds, Bluetooth SIG, Lucent Technologies, and United Kingdom Trade & Investments (UKTI), amongst others.

Before IPAN Hill & Knowlton, Advani worked at Clea Public Relations as a senior consultant. His clients included such companies as Monsanto, Seagram and Idea Cellular.

Prior to Clea, Advani worked with the Milestone Group of Companies handling the product marketing & promotions and public relations for the group companies –Milestone Interactive Software, Milestone Entertainment, EMI Music Publishing, and FreeSpirit Entertainment. Advani was involved in conceptualizing, producing and promoting the most successful brand of FreeSpirit – Rhydhun by Taufiq Qureshi and Ustad Zakir Hussain. Rhydhun was India’s first World Music Album.

While in Mumbai, Advani also took time out over the weekends to teach students of advertising and mass communications at leading institutions like HR College of Commerce & Economics and National College.