Exclusive | Exciting times for Penn Schoen Berland in India: Ashwani Singla

Ever since it set up operations in India or rather commencing its South Asia operations about a year ago, Penn Schoen Berland the multinational Strategic Communication advisory firm has made a steady progress. Beginning with offices at Gurgaon and Mumbai and a single corporate practice serving MNC clients, the agency has recently added second practice mainly advocacy & public affairs for which it has appointed retired Government of India bureaucrat Ashok Kapur, A former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, Ashok Kapur comes on board as the Head of The Policy Group for PSB’s South Asia operations. He will lead a team of policy advocacy and government relations experts to help companies successfully negotiate some their Corporate Affairs challenges.

 

To find out more about the agency’s plans, Adgully spoke to Ashwani Singla, Managing Director & Chief Executive of PSB Schoen Berland, South Asia. In his two decade of experience in the communication & service industry, Ashwani has donned the role of a trusted advisor and strategist for building strong and effective communications strategy for top MNCs, Indian enterprises and emerging Indian MNCs across a wide range of sectors.

Prior to his current role, Ashwani was the Chief Executive of Genesis Burson-Marsteller and Member of the Asia Pacific Board of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide. Excerpets:

 

 

Ashwani Singla (AS): Commencing our operations in South Asia in April last year, we have progressed to two offices across Gurgaon and Mumbai. We have attracted solid talent, established a solid operating infrastructure and worked for a range of the bluest-of-blue-chip MNCs and Indian corporations with global ambitions. We are proud to have served our clients and thank them for putting their trust into something they knew to be the right thing to do but something not tried and tested before. I am delighted that their faith was not misplaced and we continue to build on their endorsement of our work for them.

 

 

AS: We have a clear five year agenda and putting each block in its place. We started with Gurgaon and our corporate practice; we are seeing interest in our political consulting practice and in time to come hope to launch our media and entertainment offering. Keep watching this space for more as we build further on the launch of our Policy Group.

 

 

AS: Currently our focus is India and building a robust practice here. Our operating philosophy for this practice is the 'greatest good for the greatest numbers' which means we hope to contribute to nation building through a progressive dialogue between business and government. Our recent experience has demonstrated the power of a well-constructed positive argument based purely on information and knowledge. 

 

 

AS: We are indeed privileged that a person of the stature of Mr. Kapur decided to join the firm and I am quite looking forward to his presence amongst our midst. As far the comfort of organizations with policy advocacy, our experience shows that they understand the strategic importance of public policy and its impact on business. However, many choose not to delve into practicing it because of an aversion to politics, fear of failure or simply because they don’t know how. The Policy Group at PSB, SA under his able leadership and tutelage will help clients understand governance, policy implications and engage policymakers to raise their credibility, build their constituency base while standing for issues that are crucial to the stakeholders they serve. This is where his astute knowledge of governance and policy making would benefit our clients the most. Needless to mention, we base our conversations on knowledge and insights gained through an understanding of public opinion using our advanced research techniques.

 

 

AS: We are not a PR firm. We are a research based Strategic Communication advisory focussed on the science of persuasion which dwells deeply into understanding the hearts and minds of stakeholders using advanced research techniques to develop campaigns that persuade audience to act.  We are pioneering a new category of work. Our campaigns are based on our 3i approach: driven by deep insights, integrated across stakeholders and mediums and focussed in impact on beliefs and behaviours. This has helped us operate in the board rooms of  corporate clients and war rooms of candidates aspiring for public office.

 

These are exciting times for Penn Schoen Berland here in India.