Mukesh Gupta loves being bold and different. Which is why his ad agency, iB&W, has still not aligned with any foreign partner. ``I should be best able to communicate to the people of my country. Not foreign ad agencies,'' he says.

Being the 14th largest advertisement agency in the country, Gupta has reason to be arrogant. Last year, IB&W overtook medium-sized agencies like Enterprise and its gross capitalised billings stood at Rs 100 crore.

Five years ago, when Gupta started the agency, he had eight national clients. In the first year of operations itself, the business touched Rs 5.2 crore. ``It was a satisfying kick-off,'' says Gupta, complacently.

Having completed his MBA from the Bajaj Institute of Management, Gupta worked for Brooke Bond, selling tea. ``It was my finest experience. It helped sharpen my communication skills when I switched over to advertising,'' he reminisces.

The switch to advertising came in 1980, when he joined Everest Advertising as an account executive. Clarion Advertising was his next halt and he headed the organisation for four months. ``It was then that I decided to start my own agency,'' he says.

Is Gupta content with his achievements? No, he says, and he won't be until he makes iB&W the greatest brand-building agency. And grabs clients from the beverages and automobiles sectors.

At 43, Gupta has other interests, too. Like social work. And visiting the bazaar to feel the pulse of the marketplace because ``that keeps me in touch with real people.''

Marketer Non Pareil

Rajiv Kaul, Microsoft's product marketing manager for desktop applications and operating systems, is a marketeer to the tee. His area of focus is developing and implementing product strategies for the Indian sub-continent region. And at the moment, he is busy designing a network system on ``how to reduce total cost of ownership''.

Says Kaul enthusiastically, ``Microsoft is working with industry partners and customers to develop a TCO model that takes the existing models and extends them to include analyses of the costs of both the information technology activities themselves and the demand for those activities.''

He elaborates: ``In each of our product categories, we are making changes that will clearly and significantly reduce costs and this continues to be our priority as we plan future versions of existing products and services as well as new offerings.''

Kaul has been with Microsoft for a year now and was earlier responsible for product sales in the northern and eastern regions. Before he joined Microsoft, he was branch manager for the information systems division at ITC Limited in Delhi. Armed with an engineering degree from the Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, and a Master's degree in business administration from the Xavier's Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, Kaul is definitely the right man for his job.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.