Mahesh Murthy is one of India's recognised experts in youth marketing - having helped launch MTV India, run Channel V and managed offline and online marketing efforts for brands like Pepsi, Nike, Idea Cellular, Lipton and The Economist.Mahesh has spent over 25 years in marketing and advertising, of which the last 15 have been in digital marketing. After dropping out of college, Mahesh sold vacuum cleaners from door to door, worked with Grey in India and Ogilvy in Hong Kong, where he won notoriety and awards as a creative director on HP, Korean Air and other brands - for whom he wrote and directed a spot voted “Asia’s best commercial of the decade”. He then moved to a Silicon Valley firm, CKS Partners as Creative Director, General Manager and Partner – where he helped launch Yahoo and Amazon.com globally. After a successful NASDAQ IPO, Mahesh moved to head marketing at iCat, an e-commerce firm in Seattle subsequently acquired by Intel.
Mahesh then returned to India to run Channel V, a rival to MTV, until its sale to Newscorp in 2000 and then founded Passionfund to invest in startups. Some of his investees include Geodesic, Compassbox, Indiaproperties, EBS and Webdunia. Mahesh penned a reasonably infamous column in Business Today and Businessworld, and played the investor in Business Baazigar, a game show similar to The Apprentice, involving entrepreneurs and business plans.
While running search marketing campaigns for his favourite charity in 2003, Mahesh believed there was a need for a digital brand management company - and set up Pinstorm in Bombay. With over 120 people across offices in India, Singapore, Malaysia and Europe and the US, Pinstorm is today among the world's path-breaking digital marketing firms, handling the digital brand management needs of ICICI, Jet Airways, HSBC, Nestle and Greenpeace
Mahesh writes a column in the Wall Street Journal and speaks regularly at conferences around the world like AdTech, 140conf and Search Engine Strategies. He tweets regularly at @maheshmurthy
