'Believes in the power of global people'
ISHANI DUTTAGUPTA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2003 12:56:56 AM ]

Satish Korde, a president with the WPP group, the world’s leading communications service providers which has major brands including  J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, MindShare, Mediaedge:cia, Millward Brown, OgilvyOne, Wunderman, Hill & Knowlton, Ogilvy Public Relations, Burson-Marsteller, Cohn & Wolfe, CommonHealth, Enterprise IG and Landor in its fold, was instrumental in the development of Young & Rubicam's proprietary global consumer study dedicated to how brands are built and managed.

But he is not quite ready to put any brand value to the concept of 'Global Indian'. “In the US as well as elsewhere around the world, Indians are truly global and have become part of different cultures. And as truly global people, it is important to understand world cultures instead of passing value judgement. One must learn to respect different customs and languages, for instance, there’s no point in questioning why Spaniards eat late at night or people in Brazil party all the time,'' he says. For his own success in Young & Rubicam and now WPP, where he heads the Ford account worldwide, he thanks his bosses who are truly global people. “In the early years, I worked with great people like Peter Georgescu and later Sir Martin Sorrell who are truly global in their way of thinking and helped me get past the colour barrier,'' he says. But how did an IIT-B grad in chemical engineering and an MBA from the University of Minnesota find himself at Madison Avenue , Manhattan ’s Mecca of advertising, in the first place. “An advertising job with Leo Burnett was the only one I got after a lot of effort,'' is his candid reply. “That was 1971 and there was a severe recession in the US and IIT wasn't a global brand in those days either. It was really difficult for foreign students to get good jobs in the US . And 30 years ago there were very few Indians in advertising but today more and more are doing well in the field of marketing and advertising,'' he says.

His own address had meanwhile changed to the Ford headquarters in Detroit from WPP in Madison Avenue. “It's the ultimate endorsement from a customer who wanted a person from the holding company to whom all the agencies would report directly to. For me, to have an office inside Ford and sit with their top management at important meetings is the beginning of a new role and almost a new job,'' he says. While this assignment is a few months old, earlier he was account MD on the Ford business and has spent several years in Detroit as well as in London . He is also worldwide corporate research director.

And now even as he sees his alma mater IIT graduating into a global brand, for him it still remains the ultimate frontier. “I was in the middle of the pack at IIT-Mumbai, but that's where I learnt the most difficult lessons in survival. Going through the grind at IIT has given all of us an extra edge to do well in our chosen fields,'' he says. And while, he has been trying to find time to get involved in Pan-IIT activities in the US , he was in Mumbai to join the 25th anniversary of his own IIT a few years ago.