We only grow our business if what we do has impact: Pooja Jauhari

Pooja Jauhari, CEO, The Glitch, speaks to AdGully about taking charge as the Chief Executive Officer, her vision for the agency, the digital agenda, the road ahead and more. Excerpts:

How is the transition from VP, Client Strategy, to CEO panning out?

Excellent, challenging and exciting all together. The best part of this move has been the ability to now work with teams across functions. We have an amazing talent pool, our teams are creating new things everyday because our world changes almost everyday. For me, the opportunity to now look beyond just business has been very exciting. We are a future ready creative company and we learn, create, make mistakes, learn and create some more. The transition has been simply fantastic.

As CEO, what is your vision and agenda for The Glitch?

Our world changes daily, so my one-point agenda is to be a Future Ready creative company. I say this confidently because we, as a company, have the ability to accept change, learn quickly and adapt our learnings to solving business problems, building cultural relevance while building brands in this very interesting environment called Digital. And, everything is digital, social media is just a part of it, not all of it.

What are your key focus areas to grow the business?

What we do can be measured almost immediately. So very simply we only grow our business if what we do has impact. Social impact, cultural impact and or business impact. We can make fancy credentials, enter in a lot of awards. But if what we do doesn’t solve problems, and our creative strategy doesn’t sustain itself beyond a campaign, we lose. We build long lasting relationships with our clients because it is not about extending a mainline campaign on digital. It’s about building unique POV’s for our clients. Sustainable, impactful creative strategies that grow our clients business will grow our business.

What do you consider to be the most challenging area/s of your role as CEO?

The biggest challenge for me, and honestly anyone in leadership positions across our industry, is to stay relevant. There was a time when plain experience could help you grow in an industry. And while experience is still very important, it’s paramount we constantly understand the world we operate in. I stay hungry for information and I learn everyday, from everyone. So be it social platforms, e-commerce destinations, digital wearables, changing consumer behaviours, global and Indian market changes, it’s important I keep myself and my team up-to-date. And in most cases have this information much sooner. The more we know, the more we learn; the more expertise we build, the more relevant we stay for our teams and our clients.

During your tenure as Vice President, what were some of the key decisions taken by you to move the company forward?

1. Building new services by building newer expertise.

2. Introducing brand planning as a core function across retainer clients.

3. Building a really strong leadership team across Creative, Business, Planning, Video and Tech.

4. Gaining global market experiences while building very localised communications

What are some of the prominent clients in your roster?

Netflix, WWE, Lays, Tresemme, Whisper, ICICI Bank, Lakme, and Kurkure just a few names from our diverse portfolio.

What is the current employee strength of The Glitch?

We are around 200 across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.

How does the quirkiness spread out to the agency culture?

I have to say, this trickles down from our founders. Our culture encourages ownership and the ability to build your own unique career path, from interns all the way to the CEO. The agency allows for freedom, while we have process, we are free to constantly chart newer ways of working, so we constantly learn new things. When we hire new talent, we don’t want them to just start doing things the way we do it, we encourage individuality while equally building trust and team spirit. And as they say it, we work hard and party harder.