Tapan Pal joins Percept Media as CEO

MUMBAI: Industry veteran Tapan Pal has bid adieu to aMap or Audience Measurement and Analytics which he helped start to join Percept Media as CEO. Media veteran Amit Ray from the Reliance camp has joined the organisation as director, strategy. Sripad Kulkarni continues as chief operating officer.

Ray had left Vibrant Media (Reliance’s media AOR) fairly recently. All of them will report to Tapan Pal.

Harinder Singh, vice-chairman and managing director, Percept Holdings, confirmed this development to DNA Money. Singh said: “The year 2007 is going to be a critical year for our media business but it will mature next year. We just got the business back from Aegis so this year we will focus on quality set-up, setting the team, the infrastructure, implementing the processes and the know-how. We will be both in traditional media services like media planning and buying and also in media sales and media ownerships like Viacom, Clear Channel, etc. Media Services business I believe is a lot to do with leveraging financial trading and buying. It’s a business that survives on 1-2% fee. But it is not good enough and you can’t make money. So in order to make money we need to trade intelligently. We will be investing in media asset ownership. We will also be spending heavily on sports as it gives us an opportunity to own assets, acquire assets, etc.”

He added: “In the advertising industry you will never find a front-end finance guy. It is more like a back-office function in the ad industry. In the media business finance is the revenue driver. So the fourth pillar in our media company is getting structured and we are looking for a finance person. We do not want a traditional advertising finance person but a non-traditional expert. That’s why it is taking a bit longer.”

When contacted, Tapan Pal, CEO, aMap, however denied his shift from Audience Measurement and Analytics to Percept Media.