 Welcome, PK, to this chat. Thanks for taking time out. And thank you to all of you for being patient. And Shashi is very vocal and very candid, honest. Thanks to that. And Shashi has already answered most of the industrially related issues. So me and PK will perhaps stick to more brass tacks and where the business is headed and also try in the process not to bore you. So PK, I want to center this around two pillars, this conversation. There's a lot that's gone on in the media agency ecosystem in the last 20 odd years from the days of HTA media when media slides used to be the last to be presented to now be at the forefront of what clients are doing, the first line item that clients look at. And now with all the rapid growth of technology, digital, and what have you in the last five, seven years, the entire face of this business has changed. There are two large umbrella trends that are colliding at the top. One is the agencies that are trying to learn advertising technology at a very fast pace. On the other hand, clients are driving their businesses very fast to get technology to drive their entire marketing sort of function. So there is a, collision is not the right word, but perhaps there is a sort of merger of MARTEK and ATTEK happening at the top. Agencies are very focused on ATTEK. MARTEK is the other pillar where the clients are focusing a lot of energies and time effort on. How do you think the agencies in the current form are equipped to kind of also get seriously into MARTEK and help clients there? I think a lovely question. It's true, especially that in the last two to three years, I think this observation which you said has only accelerated. I think we have real dynamic changes happening on a daily basis. And that's also because I think the business models have changed. I think a lot of technology, intelligence, into doing business has just been accelerated and the momentum is completely on a daily basis. As far as our learning goes, I think a lot of it stems from what is the client's business, what is the model, how is the business done, which category, what consumers are, understanding of all of that. So I think a lot of it is to really put an effort to know about the consumers and about the client's business. And there again, these days, if we compare two decades back, I think a lot of information, a lot of insights, a lot of data, which is real-time available, is today available in your hands. And technology is helping us to do that. So essentially, this means that multiple efforts which allows us to learn and get insights and therefore investing into tools, investing into data understanding and primarily investing into the right talent, upgrading our talent to understand that, is all stitched up in our formula, which is evolving. But that's where the time has to go in. From most of the organization, which is really trying to stitch up the Matic potential and capabilities along with the Arctic potential and capabilities. Because we also have a partner ecosystem, which is evolving very fast. And sometimes, I feel the partner ecosystem is more evolving than anybody. And that's because the hunger and the urge to leverage many of this technology, put into understanding consumers, and use them to business growth across multiple businesses, probably displayed. So it's a very exciting time. I think every organization need to deeply think about how to invest in and proactively work on future aspects on this. So the important adjunct to that question is that how do you attract talent to work for you, which is well equipped to deal with the ecosystem of ATTEC and Matic? Because the truth is today, advertising agencies are not necessarily the first port of call for the brightest, especially in the technology space. So what do you do as a media agency, as a media services company, that makes it exciting for them to be part of? Because like you yourself said, platforms know more than you do. Or there is a whole lot of ecosystem outside. There are independent companies, the youngsters who are starting their own agencies. There are consultancies who offer top dollar higher from the top most institutes. Where do the media services, where does the media services ecosystem stand in terms of being able to attract this talent? Again, let me be very candid. I think we are on the learning process in that. I don't think anybody has a perfect answer to that question. But I think what I can say is that in order to attract this talent, I think what is very much, I mean, some of it, I think Shashi mentioned, to have the culture and the ambience, which is very important, I feel. But I think the ability or an opportunity to do some fantastic work is definitely a very inspirational or aspirational aspect for many of the new talent. Because today the world, as you see, especially in given the last two to three years, we all know that the industry has gone through a great change. I mean, some are new. Some of them have gone to new roles. Some are new businesses. Some are old categories and new businesses. Everything has happened, right? I mean, we have seen how the startup ecosystem has really created that momentum. And because of that, I think it's very important to keep a lot of open mind. One is to accept that there is a lot of newness which will come in hitters, right? And therefore, learning and sharing is a mutual aspect which has to come in, right? I think that kind of an attitude and that kind of really openness will actually give a lot more open door for many more great talent to come in first. I think a lot of, I must, I mean, I don't know the exact number, but I'm sure it must be about 30% to 35% of the people in today in our industry probably are new today. And if they are new, they should stick on. And they are the people who will probably give batons to more new people coming into the industry, right? Today we see a lot of versatile talent coming into the industry. They should stick on to our industry. What's in it for them? So one is obviously the culture ambience, but also doing some great work, right? The ability to, I think, being afraid of doing mistakes and rather than being afraid of trying, I think we should, I mean, these are words of mine. These are words from the famous and greatest Roger Federer. So I'm just quoting from him. But we should not be afraid to try. We should have space to do mistakes, right? And therefore, newness and innovations can come, right? So I feel the more we do that and the more we are able to, you know, demonstrate some of the examples, inspire people, you know, make it much more, you know, much more go and talk to more people, tell them what's the industry is about, how the industry is changing, what's in it for them. I think this can be a different change, which we can see. And media service companies have made a lot of progress also in the last 10 years. I remember a lot of conversations used to be centered around how these big consultancies will sort of eat up the sort of businesses of media companies, agencies, but that's not happened. Re-invention has happened. Clients have reposed more faith. A lot of agencies have, you know, gone where the customer is, hence being with the client. Let me now come to, you know, the other aspect of, you know, what's happening in this entire space. Everybody talks about digital, right? Growth of digital, growth of technology, the platform and the last seven or eight odd years we've seen so much of mushrooming, right? Digital is unlike any other linear legacy media. I often use this example 25 years back if a client wanted to put an ad on a TV channel, all he needed was two agencies, right? A media agency and a creative agencies and most likely both of them were under one roof, so one agency. Today, if a client wants to be on, say, Facebook, you need what? You know, maybe 10 companies to work with somebody who's doing influencer marketing. Another guy is, you know, doing ad targeting. A third one is doing, you know, programmatic buying. Another guy is creating the 10-seconder. Somebody is doing data analytics. So, you know, the entire ecosystem is really boomed and, you know, you guys have also done a lot of work from doing influencer marketing content and, you know, now I understand work in the CTV space. Where is this future headed? How do you see it panning out three years, five years out from today because all the mushrooming that has happened has been, you know, if you look at TV, TV is linear, so mushrooming of TV channels in some way was just cloning of the same model. Here, this is not cloning, right? This is like new models spawning every year. So, what does it do to your business three, five years out? What does it do to the, you know, brands that want to reach out to consumers? Again, a great question, I wish I had all the answers for this. But I think it'll take a lot more, you know, efforts on what we do today to really recognize, you know, what the next couple of years can be. And what I mean by that is, I think, as you said, you know, at every single space there is mushrooming happening, there is an evolving product or a service or an opportunity which is coming up. We all need to be completely, you know, year's eyes on it, right? As obviously picking up trends and practically trying some of the aspects which can really, you know, give best solutions to the entire task itself, right? I mean, in that, I entirely mean by the client's business, right? I think learning expertise, I mean, if somebody is able to, you know, learn about influencer marketing, somebody is able to learn about CTV or, you know, different technology related products, I think it just adds to the advantage of how we are able to, you know, come with the solutions for that business. And when we are able to spend more time on the preparation of, you know, what is really working for the consumers, you know, with the consumers for the business, I think definitely we'll be able to, you know, do the good rally with how the evolution can come in, right? Yes, digital space has only got more exciting, right? If you take it, you know, you don't need to go 10 years back, but if you take a media plan, say, seven, eight years back, and if you compare that to the media plan today, you will probably have another some seven, eight lines more as solutions, which maybe we would have never thought about it, you know, previously. And I think that will only grow more, right? Because solutions will only get more innovative and, you know, there are much more sharper way to, you know, find solutions to it with all the different evolution happening. So I think we should be our eyes and eyes and ears need to be on the ground to learn the trends and never stop, you know, proactively experimenting and learning that expertise on each of the aspects. You, I recently sort of read what you and Ashu have been speaking about in the last few months. Group M had a fantastic 2021. This year, your, you know, TYNY report also projected good growth for the industry, but all that has happened in the environment in the last six months has thrown a spanner in the work, so to say, you know, inflation has picked up growth across many Western economies has slowed down. India has very impacted as well, oil prices, supply chain issues. Do you think this will make an impact on the IDEX overall and how does it, how does it specifically impact companies like yours? Of course, it's true the challenges are here and now, right? I think, I mean, we have a lot of partners here. We discuss this in a daily manner about the challenges. Yes, it's true that inflationary pressures are there and different businesses. And of course, other challenges like, you know, different categories. Some categories may be not spending. Some categories may have changed the strategy. You know, all these challenges really also give you an opportunity to think much more harder on how we can really find results to this, right? Globally, yes, it's quite similar or even probably grave in some of the markets. But I think my bets are still on India. I think we have had a fantastic opportunity, right? We had the pandemic really actually, I mean, we were in a time where the pandemic did not know. I mean, we did not know if it was new that probably we could have done it even like this now, right? But I think a lot of catch-up has happened and, you know, we all got so adaptive to learn the new ways of looking at things. I think the entire marketing aspect and finding solutions from businesses, et cetera, got caught up and we all moved in a good momentum on that. If you were to give in those challenges, I think these are challenges which are post-effect. And it is true that maybe we are hurrying it up and trying to find an answer for a question. You know, the pandemic is probably not over yet because there is post-pandemic issues which are there globally domestic in every business aspect. So I think a lot of patience and resilience is required, to understand each of the momentum. Maybe there are impacts of different seasons and different quarters which may be changing, right? And those are aspects which we need to really think on. Maybe, I mean, definitely there are newer categories of started coming in. We never had a FinTech and we never had an HTech actually doing so much, you know, even in the advertising aspect, right? So there are newer aspects which have come in. I think we should allow it to again further evolve and every month, every two months there are multiple new things happening. So being concluding faster is, I think I don't want to be in that space. But finding an opportunity within the challenge, I think it's an interesting little to solve, right? And I think in a span of every two months, we are finding those opportunities come in. The ecosystem, you know, like how the digital is growing or how the TV is growing or print and radio and out of home even. All the, I mean, growth as such is as of yesterday. So it'll be interesting to see that, you know, this year will also pass where next year will come. I mean, hardly three more months to go. And the growth is where it is constant, right? There's a consistency on growth story. And I think that better still on India. Definitely, you know, we're at a very large consuming market. Definitely, there are room for many more things to be tried, not just in different categories, but even in media and marketing. And I'm sure that that'll actually, you know, be true for many more years to come. I think this decade, 2020 to 2030, I mean, especially 22 to 2030, is a great decade to watch out for in this market. Yeah, I think as a leader, a very important to remember always, you know, while we get swarmed by this, you know, in this daily din of new cycles, a lot of which might not be very positive in the economy to have a slightly long-term perspective on where all of this is headed and continue to invest in the capabilities that you require to be, you know, competitive a few years down the line. It's very important. Last two questions, PK, you know, you've been part of this company, WPP and many of TARS for a good part of, you know, more than 10 years now. You've been, you're an insider who's sort of, you know, grown through the ranks. And last four or five years have been sort of spectacularly successful for, you know, Group M specifically. What are the three pillars that you think you will attribute these sort of the success story to capabilities that you've built, things that you've done, which are, which also did not come naturally to, you know, media agencies? It did not probably come naturally to me also. I'm actually speaking in which some of my, you know, bosses here. So a lot of learning has definitely happened from there. But yeah, I think one is, I definitely made sure that I should have fun. Okay, so it is so important to, you know, genuinely keep trying and create some great solutions and have fun and share it with the team. You know, you're only as good as your team, right? So definitely work on the team. I mean, spend more time, the more you share, the more you, you know, rally with them more and some good space for them to challenge you, et cetera. I think your game steadily improves. There's no doubt about that. So I think I've been very lucky. You know, I had good bosses, I had good colleagues. I had many new, you know, new people who I interacted, made some good friends. So all that learning and advice is definitely, so we have to be, you know, really work on that. That's one. I think the second point, you said three, I'll try and see for the second point. Second point is very clearly, I think there's, you know, aspect of win-win is I think is to be practiced, right? I mean, I don't think there is anything wrong in negotiation, but you know, ability to find solves when challenges are on your, you know, on your table is something which if you focus more, I think it'll allow you to get more opportunities to really work on, right? And the third thing is that, you know, you need to commit yourself, you know, do your best. Be, you know, integrate to be the highest, be integral to yourself, right? Be open to, you know, try different things, newer things, I think it'll pay off. That's it. Fantastic. One last question. You know, we all get inspired daily by, you know, people around us, people we look up to, companies that are doing well. Who's your role model? Who's somebody that, you know, you look up to? By the way, there's not a trick question to get you to choose one of your clients, but you know, it could be outside the business domain. Whom do you look up to and sort of, you know, get your inspiration from? There are many whom I look up to. As I said, and I've learned, you know, few things from everyone, including my partner, including my clients, my bosses, my, you know, juniors, peers, everyone. I think it's very interesting to also pick and learn, and you know, observe and learn few things which you want to invite, right? Such as? Many are there. I mean, some of them are sitting here, right? And, you know, definitely that's a, that's something which, you know, probably I didn't have, but it just got developed, you know? I've worked with multiple people here, and I've interacted with multiple partners here, and everyone has been able to, it's been a very good experience. But yeah, you know, this is also from the aspect of, you should have an interest to learn, right? If you're able to imbibe that, I think, you know, you will definitely be happy. And you can have many role models on different things, right? And my best analogy goes in sports, right? And I mean, for a particular sport, you can have multiple role models on different shots, right? And that has helped me to, that outlook has helped me. And my gratitude is always to each and every one on that. Absolutely, as they say, businesses keep growing, but the learning never stops. It's like, you know, I was doing maths with my son yesterday, a ray is a line with one endpoint on a side, but indefinite on the other side, right? So that's how learning should be for every business leader. Thank you, PK. Thank you for taking time out. I hope it was a worthwhile session to everyone.