Word Up 2015

And we’re back for another all-about-blogging day at Word Up 2015. Enough said!

The speakers so far:

KV Sridhar (Pops)
As the first Chief Creative Officer of SapientNitro’s India operations, Pops is responsible for the leading the creative strategy of the agency. Pops’ role involves creating strategic advantage for SapientNitro’s clients at the intersection of creativity and technology in the rapidly-expanding, important India market. Pops is also a member of the global SapientNitro executive creative team and works alongside Sapient India Managing Director, Rajdeep Endow, as a critical part of the management team leading an expanding business in APAC.

Prior to joining SapientNitro, Pops was the Chief Creative Officer of Leo Burnett- India and Subcontinent and was associated with the agency for over 17 years. He played a significant role in the regional creative management of the agency and was part of Leo Burnett’s Global Product Committee. Pops comes with over 33 years of experience in building brands like Coke, ThumsUp, Limca, Maaza, Minute Maid, Fiat, GM, Samsung, LG, among many other well-known names.

Pops was recently named in the prestigious list of Hall of Fame of Asian advertising, media and marketing leaders past 40 years by Campaign Asia. He has won 22 Cannes lions and over 100 international awards including, One Show, D&AD, London International, New York Festivals, Clios, Award, Adfest, Spikes and over 600 national awards. He has also been part of many national and international juries including, Cannes, D&AD, New York Festivals, London International, Adfest, and several regional and local award shows.

Aashish Chopra
Aashish Chopra is an award winning viral video marketer, having made and marketed videos with millions of views in the last one year. He is passionate about content and believes that in the times of declining attention spans and chaotic newsfeeds, creativity is the differentiator. He works at ixigo.com in content marketing. From ideation to execution he has been instrumental in making video marketing a growth hack for ixigo. “In today’s fast evolving digital landscape, social media strategy for any brand revolves around remarkable content. Content must be compelling and share-worthy, period. Every brand today is turning into a media company.” he affirms. Before diving into video marketing, for two years Aashish was active in visual content marketing, with several Infographics going viral on Slideshare. Before that, he started a web services company in Canada and learnt the lessons of being an entrepreneur and the value of building relationships in traditional old-school businesses. As early as grade 8, he was designing websites and helping others with new tools and technology. He lives in Gurgaon, and is dealing with the everyday challenges of having a cat.

Arun Nair
Arun Nair is the founder and author of IndianEye.org. The blog was launched by Arun in 2007 to post articles on digital, e-commerce and technology trends reflecting his perspective and experience. Arun is a thought leader and influencer in the e-commerce and digital marketing space with over 14 years of experience as a digital professional. He is credited with mentoring and launching several digital, e-commerce and web 2.0 initiatives, including a publisher affiliate network (CPA based), an un-conference (along the lines of TED) and a successful travel blog.

Kiran Manral
Kiran Manral was a journalist before she quit to be full time mommy. Her blogs were both in India’s top blogs and she was a Tehelka blogger columnist on gender issues.
Her debut novel, The Reluctant Detective, was published by Westland in 2012 and her second novel Once Upon A Crush, was published by Leadstart in May 2014. Her third book is due out in August from Penguin Random House.

She initiated the online volunteer network India Helps, post the 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai and the team of volunteers worked on the rehabilitation of the affected and the bereaved of this and the 13/7 bomb blasts amongst others. She is also part of the core founding team of both Child Sexual Abuse Awareness online initiative and Violence Against Women Awareness Month. She is on the planning board of the Kumaon Literary Festival and is an advisor on the Board of Literature Studio, Delhi. She was awarded the Women Achievers award by Young Environmentalists Group in 2013. She lives in Mumbai with her family and counts every day off the Nutella wagon as a successful day.

Lakshmipathy
Lakshmipathy Bhatt is a Marketing Communications Professional with most of his 25 year working career spent in advertising. He is a failed MBBS applicant, non-MBA and a graduate in Zoology (which perhaps explains why advertising was his last refuge). He has had long stints at global ad agencies like Grey Worldwide and FCB Ulka heading profit centres in Mumbai, Dhaka, Colombo and Bangalore. In 2012, he quit advertising to become independent as a Director at CodeConclave where we crafted mobile apps for brands. He was also a Consultant and visiting faculty at a B-school, teaching Digital Marketing. In 2014, he joined Robosoft Technologies, a leading mobility solutions provider as VP - Corporate Communications. He is passionate about advertising, branding, Apple & its products and new media.

Nandita Iyer
Nandita Iyer is a Bangalore based food writer and columnist. Her blog, Saffron Trail has been a mainstay on healthy vegetarian cooking since 2006. Being medical doctor who has specialised in nutrition, her food reflects her passion for healthy cooking (as it should!) and eating fresh and seasonal. Her current pet projects include growing most of the stuff her family eats in their organic terrace garden, making food videos, learning to play the acoustic guitar and taking delicious looking photos of the dishes she makes. She loves testing out recipes on her 6-year-old son who can make Gordon Ramsay nervous with his expert culinary commentary. Oh yes, she also dabbles in soap making using the herbs & flowers from her kitchen garden, for her family and friends.

Rachit Hirani
Being born and brought up in a family that has been a part of the Automotive industry for over seven decades, Rachit has cars in his blood. Four wheelers are his childhood love, and he has grown up playing with bolts and spanners. To add more value to this passion, he studied automobile engineering and even karted at National level competitions. Soon after that, he got into motoring journalism- where began the process of testing and evaluating cars. He has driven a wide range of cars beginning from Tata Nano to the Aston Martins, most of the cars that are currently sold in the Indian car market. Apart from this, he has also done many long road trips, and shall continue to do so. Rachit was one of the first journalists to take a Nano across the Golden Quadrilateral.