 I have two gentlemen here with me, one who's globally well known as FCB's turnaround man and second who in his last interview told me that he'd love to be referred to as the serial builder of agencies. Let me welcome Tyler Turnbull, CEO of FCB Global and FCB India's CEO, Dhirat Sinha. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. It's a pleasure. You know, two big developments have happened in India, Tyler, after your last visit. One is, of course, Dhirat's appointment and second is Swati's departure. I want to understand from you on hindsight, do you feel that every CEO really needs to find his own partner to create that magic and for FCB it would have been sort of tough to recreate that Swati Rohit magic again. Well, listen, let me just start by saying I am incredibly proud of the agency that Rohit and Swati and our entire team has built over the years. I mean, some of our most globally recognized work came from that team. But I also believe that change is a positive thing, especially in our business and in our industry. I think clients look for it and I think creativity thrives on it. And so I could not be more excited that Dhiraj has chosen to join us. I think his first few months at FCB have been incredible and I know that he's going to build a phenomenal creative group and a phenomenal team who can keep up the legacy that I think Swati Rohit and many of our people created over that time. So very excited and feeling very good. Dhiraj, for you, I mean, on one side you obviously brick by brick built Leo Burnett into a force to reckon with on the global stage. And Swati sort of carved that debut for FCB India at the Cannes platform and plastered there year after year. Now that she's not going to be around, does her absence kind of put more pressure on you at this year at Cannes and are you hopeful of a big victory again? So I think as Tyler said, the work that Rohit and Swati and that team, the work they did for FCB built a great pedestal and a great platform for us and a lot of that team, in fact, stays on and carries on the work, right? People like Nithya, Rakesh, Gaurav, Yudhira, Nishila and so on and so forth. So the last part of the team that powered the leadership is still here, all right? As far as Cannes is concerned, I never take Cannes as a pressure. I think Cannes is a measurement of a great agency and a great organization. And that's what we are focused on. I think all of us in our lives as individuals and as organizations have one enough Cannes not to worry about winning another 12 of them. So if we win, we are happy. If we don't win, it's fine. We are focused on building an organization, a current culture of making our Cannes successful. That's what I'm truly focused on right now. So no pressure. But you have a great lineup waiting for you. We have a good lineup. I think a lot of the Cannes contenders this year are coming from the work which has happened last year. There's a lot more work which is in the pipeline for this year. And then I keep talking about we are never in a hurry to meet a candid line. We want to do things right. We want to win big on our big brands. And once that kicks in, you will see that the organization, the energy of the organization is kicking in, brands are taking in, and glory is kicking in. I think it's one of the outcomes or measurements of how the organization is doing. It's not something that I want to engineer artificially. Susan Creedle, who I know you know, our global chair has always said that our focus needs to be doing our best work on our biggest brands. And over the last seven years, she's built up an incredible global creative council that I think has been focused on doing just that. So as Jaraj says, that really is our first bar of success. The outcome and the recognition that that work may receive at Cannes or at other shows is always a cherry on top at a great benefit. Yes, but it's our goal is never that. Our goal is to drive economic growth for the brands that we work with. And if the work is recognized as a result of that growth, we're proud. And you know, talking about growth, I think SB has managed to grow even during the peak of the pandemic, if I remember correctly. Cut to 2023, a lot of agencies are struggling. But even IPG for that matter has seen an organic drop in their growth. I think 0.1%. And FCB has managed to see a 5% growth. So I have two questions. How much has India grown in that 2023 period? And what really is the secret ingredient that kind of helps you go against it? Well, first of all, we can't share specific numbers about India. But what I will share is that India for us has always been an incredible growth driver for FCB overall. The dynamic nature of the market here, of talent, of our clients, has been incredible. And I think that stability and that energy is something that we've seen in our results year in and year out, certainly in 2023. Getting to your second question, the overall growth of FCB and I think the ability that we've had to counter some of the industry trends as it relates to creative financial performance has really been built on this idea that we fundamentally believe that our product is our creativity. And that that creativity needs to work in service of clients growing. And I think today, across our industry, it can sometimes seem that creative is a variable within a wider mix, a wider media machine, or rather a wider data or targeting kind of lens. But I think all of us who choose to work at FCB really believe that it starts with an incredible creative platform or idea. And how that then gets distributed and amplified through new technologies, new platforms, builds on it. But we have to always have that at the forefront of the core. Because attention has never been harder to get today. And you know that as a journalist, I think many of us do in the industry. And so having ideas that break through in compelling ways are more efficient and more effective. And I think more and more clients are coming to us around the world who believe the same thing. Another question on growth, I think I am not specifically good, but I want to know how much does India contribute to the global revenue of FCB at this point? Yes, again, I can't fortunately share too many details on that, but I would just say outside of North America, India is our biggest region. So it's of critical importance to the global health of FCB. And I think you can see that here with the group of agencies that we have from an India perspective. I mean across FCB India and Interface, obviously Alco where we are today and Connect, we have such incredible teams that I think have all succeeded and are all growing in a very special way. And part of what Dheeraj and I spoke about when he decided to join us a few months ago was the potential for where we could take India from an FCB perspective. And I think the last time we spoke I shared with you how much I believe in the country and the market. And I've never believed in it more than I have now. I think that it will become more and more important to FCB going forward. Not just within our local India market, but globally as well. You know, Dheeraj coming to you, I remember reading one of your interviews where you mentioned that the world will be divided between people who will be rallying behind creativity and humanity. And those rallying behind data, technology and AI. FCB has traditionally been inclined towards the former. But now with you coming in, are we going to see a major change in track? More focus on data, numbers, that kind, digital. I think this obviously focus on data and tech and all of that. But we feel and I believe personally that all of that is to the service of creativity, right? And I think it's become so important now because there is a crazy mad chase for everything data or everything tech for the sake of it. Or there is this crazy mad chase to turn everything that creativity does into a machine and lots of output. My God, where are my 100 social media posts? But how much of those 100 social media posts are being liked or shared or doing any impact, right? So I believe that we have to get away from that matter. We have to go back to the core of the fact that creativity can solve business problems, right? When I say creativity, I mean it more than just advertising and print and TV work, but creativity in its own way, that could be a product solution. It could be a platform. It could be a campaign, a project to bring back something, right? And that through definition of creativity to solve client problems, I feel it was never more important than in these times when there's such a crazy rush for ad take and mark take and so on and so forth. So that is the core of our business, that's the core of the way we think at FCB. And then everything else, data, AI is to the service of that. We have huge investments of data. In fact, we just launched the Indian Data COE Center of Excellence with Connecticut at the heart of it. We are making lots of investments in that in terms of people, resources, access to data for everybody in the group. So huge amount of investments on that, but all of it to the service of creativity. And I'd be very keen to find out what are the new areas that you kind of explore to tap all of this. Another thing I think IPG CEO spoke recently about how the agency of record trend has kind of seen a downfall. I mean, lot of clients are not really sustaining that kind of relationship with agencies anymore. And that's seen led to a decline of revenues overall. In contrast, I think FCB has had very long relationships. I think decade-long, I think we were discussing you had a 60-year-old relationship with. I think our oldest relationship in the world happens to be here in India. Oh, okay. So that obviously is a big chunk of your revenues coming from there. But with regard to new age clients, what is the percentage today? And are they mostly project based or retail? So it's a mix, right? We have a huge exposure to clients, which are directly linked to the growth economy to India's construction expenditure. So we are big on automotive sector, we are big on finance sector, we are big on CPG, which means that if India goes, we go as well. You can't go wrong with that story at this point in time. And we are lucky that most of those relationships with R, R, A, R, they are long-term relationship based. We do projects, even with the new age clients such as Uber, for example, we have a long-standing relationship. They're not project-based relationships. At the same time, we have open new projects, we do a lot of projects for many clients. Right now, that's not a huge part of our revenue, but it will grow as a share to our overall pie. Certainly, when I look around the world, we have many agencies where 60%, 70%, 80% would be project-based business. And I don't see that as a bad thing. I think that in many cases, a lot of our clients and a lot of our new business has shifted into projects versus pitches to start with. And I think that gives clients the ability, and frankly, us the ability to understand how our clients work, to understand whether we're going to be the right fit, and then grow from there. And I think coming from a digital background, like I do, projects were the norm. It wasn't kind of AOR status. And I think having a mix of model for us is the best way forward, and to not have a one-size-fits-all relationship. Because, look, many of our clients want different commercial models and different ways of working with us. I think our focus has been really how do we make sure that we are getting compensated for the value of what we drive to their business, and that our model matches the outcomes that they're trying to drive as well. Because you touched upon Hellymix, does it also make good business sense to kind of have a good balance between legacy clients and also new age clients, or do you think being legacy heavy can actually take FCB into the future as well? See, I honestly never look at the market as legacy versus new age. I look at the market versus, which is the client where we can make the maximum impact? Where can we solve a problem? Where can we help creativity build economic multiplier, which is what our core is? So honestly, when I put a filter to one business, it won't go after. We're not seeing it as legacy versus new age. We're seeing as where can we make the maximum impact? And on projects, I feel that, I mean, what we've done well in my past life is project-based relationships. So those are relationships as well, right? It's just that you come in, you do a project, and then go away, and you come back and do another project. So I call them relationships as well. Yeah, I just want to build on that because I think that when I think about our best partners, our best CEOs and best CMOs, I think about their mindset more as legacy or new age. And I think the majority of the partners that we have have a very new aged mindset, which to me means that they want to disrupt the status quo. They have a challenger spirit within them, whether they're a 151-year-old brand like FCB is, or they are a new startup that just started last week. And so that's the type of partner and mindset that we look for. And then I think we look at, okay, what is the reality of the brand? What's the DNA? And how do we drive that disruption that they want from there? Another aspect I want to touch upon is acquisitions. And FCB has not really been very big on acquisitions in India. I think barring connect, of course. You try to build capabilities within, which is I think FCB India was an in-house brand and brought FCB 6 to India as well. So how has that really worked out? And what is the advantage of having that kind of an approach? One of the things we like to say at FCB is we're truly local up versus global down. And I think what that operating model has allowed us to do around the world is experiment in different markets with different services, capabilities, perspectives, and when we see something working in a market, bring it to others. So FCB 6 is a prime example of that, right? An agency in a brand that was started in my hometown of Toronto, and then expanded to now eight markets around the world, including most recently India. And I think within India it's one of our fastest growing units by far in the last 12 months. What growing from within I think allowed us to do is we understand the proposition of the agency, the core capabilities, and the roadmap on how to scale and grow. And also we know culturally exactly how to, the type of people that we're looking for to bring into that unit, the type of work that we want to create. And so I think it's been helpful to grow organically in that way. But obviously, when we see something that could help our clients and our capabilities, we will acquire. And I think connect is a prime example of that. Is something on the cards at this point? I mean, AI into something in AI or gaming or e-commerce. Something happening on those lines. Listen, we're always looking, I would say, and always interested in options out there. But I think right now, at least from an India perspective, what I know Daraj is focused on is helping our clients I think have true end-to-end capabilities. I think most of our clients around the world now and certainly in India want to simplify their relationships with agencies. And I think they want an agency who is more accountable to delivering that growth across every aspect of their marketing ecosystem. And I think we're very well positioned now with our assets to do just that. Yeah, I think with the internet coming on board, I think I would say that we are the largest integrated internet company in the country. So we can go from very high in strategy to mainline, to digital, to social, to CRM, right all the way down to production, right? And say about six years back or five years back, clients were excited of navigating between 17 agencies. And they were like, oh my god, now I have a social agency, I have a sports agency, and I have a CRM agency, and so on and so forth. And now that I'm really glad, I'm just like, can you give me one? One day to show, right? So that's where our power comes, right? Because we have the ability now in one P&L to drive the full funnel, right? And that to my mind is a lot in terms of what we have at our head right now. If you're able to accelerate this in a good way, we have a good game going. You know, integration, I think FCB 6 also was kind of brought in with the same kind of a thought. And I remember initially, the idea was to maybe tap into your existing clients for the first few quarters, and then kind of see how it goes. So today now, I think we have a year old, I mean, the agency is a year old in India now, do you think it has independently created that cloud that you know, you can do the pitches and you can get on board, get clients on board independently, without other agency support? Yeah, so more is happening in India. If you look at our top seven top ten clients, they are integrated through. Which of these? So we say for Amur, we're doing work across Kinect and old car and so on and so forth. With Tata Motors, we're doing work across brands. So most of our clients are integrated, right? On some clients, we went to media with the IPG media brands. For example, Amur, we do everything including media, right? So the integration story is playing out well, and at the same time, between Kinect and FCB6, they are bringing huge mandates on their own as well. So both our clients are integrated. Okay. Interesting, and also at a time when agency margins are suffering across board, I think a beacon of hope sort of has been production. A lot of big networks have woken up to it. I think Ogilvy has, Publis is for its agency, Lyobonet, I mean, they had prodigies at that point. How soon will we see fuel content, which is something that, you know, FCB launched in 2018, kind of growing scale and really contribute to a sizable revenue of FCB in India. Yeah, look, I mean, I think globally from an FCB perspective, just for a moment, we launched four, five, six studios, which is our kind of enterprise-wide production solution of which fuel in India is a part of. But I think one of the things that has made our production solution unique to some of our competitors out there has been, we wanted to build a production solution that the world's best creatives love. And again, going back to that kind of machine mentality that we talked about earlier, I think we've seen a lot of content, high volume, high efficiency production solutions out there. But I would argue that many of those solutions are not creating great work. They're creating work that we would say is invisible or ignorable. And so working with Kerry Hill, who leads our production, who leads four, five, six globally, who has an incredible experience working with some of the top CCOs in the world like Andreas and Susan and many others, we've been able to start to build something that has attracted amazing talent into the production mix who understands how to work with great creatives to make that work thrive. And so from an India perspective, we certainly see it as an opportunity for growth to your point moving forward. But again, in service of the creative product, not as a separate standalone solution that's production only. My belief to Fuel is I wanted to be the best production house in the country, working with the best directors. I wanted to get folks in our class, you know, the best experience from Fuel, not just because it's an in-house production studio. So we will accelerate it in the right way. You know, so that the experience is fantastic and the value that our clients get is that it's not just because of the capital sector. You know, I think Kinect also had a production unit before you acquired it. Yes, it all comes under Fuel now. Kinect is another agency which has steadfastly been gaining, I think, recognition worldwide. I think it's one couple of can awards last year as well. So do you think today Kinect is more popular on the world stage than the three FCB agencies, India, Interface and Ulka? I mean, do you think it's got that kind of a potential and what are really your plans for Kinect in the coming year? Listen, let me just start by saying Rohan and Shondi, you know, the founders of Kinect 2, we obviously know incredibly well, I think are exceptionally talented. I think they are a big reason why we wanted to partner with them in the first place because they created something, I think, very innovative and very special. When I look at the recognition that Kinect has been able to drive both locally and globally, what really excites me is that was done in collaboration with many of our other FCB agencies around the world. So if you take ChaiPAD as an example, you know, that was done in partnership with FCB in Chicago, as well as Kinect. And I think that type of collaboration moving forward is going to be something that we continue. And as I said, it started with our global creative council and what Susan had curated over the years on that front. And it's going to continue across our CEOs, our CSOs, and many other places. So I think it's a very special brand, but I'm biased. I think all of our brands are quite special. But I know we're going to have amazing work coming from Kinect, as well as Interface and Alka and India in the months to come. You know, all fundamentally very strong brands. I'm very proud of Kinect and what we have in terms of Kinect. But in terms of all of the brands, they're doing some amazing work on their businesses. When I look at the dashboard of growth, they are all growing very well. So the whole growth that we've managed to build last year or this year first quarter is coming from all the brands. And that's the way in the path of the group. And I think Kinect is one place where the leadership is sort of stable right now. And I think across the other agencies, there's a lot of movement that we are seeing. We just saw someone coming in from Liobanet at FCB India. And I think FCB Ulka is obviously missing a CCO at this point. So that still needs some work. Some parts, but I think largely if you could ask me, I think the leadership is very, very stable. So Nitin who has led Ulka all the while is there with Ulka and he's now helping me with the group as an executive director shape of the direction of the group. Kulvi is the CEO of Ulka. He's joined as management trainees of the CEO of Ulka. Huge amount of stability there. But they will come here very senior executive director who've been with us for at least a decade each. And they are powering the work on a day-to-day basis. The CCO is a gap in temporary time period and that's getting filled very, very soon. Interface has got very strong leadership, right? Rakesh being with us again for the longest time. Joined us as management trainees part of the campus programs, Taiwan programs. Now the chief credit officer. So he's in the saddle and Gaurav, in fact, came here and joined the agency as a test case before I joined. So Gaurav has now been promoted to CO4 interface, right? So in that sense, the way I see it is very, very stable population. Also I want to know how you see something else. I remember I asked you this question when you joined FCB and I think it was too soon to answer that. Now you're six months into the job. What is that one USB of FCB and what is that one downside? Now you can answer this. See, I think the biggest thing which attracted me to FCB was this whole conversation that in today's time when everybody's losing faith in credibility and learning to become a software company, here is one company we are very, very bullish on the power of credibility. Like the conversation that I have with Tyler and Susan on creativity being the economic multiplier. And I believe very strongly in that whatever I've built in my past life was based on this principle of being creative at the core and then everything to the service of creativity. And I'm enjoying that piece, right? We are estimating the FCB group in their positioning around that investing heavily into creativity and everything else which has that come across. So to my mind that's the very simple, very clear focus and the biggest advantage of this group. Also which have been the big account wins in the past year and especially after you took over? Yeah, so I think lots of them. So we were just doing a review and I think we've won about 20 plus clients, right? To a tune of $2.5 million plus revenue. And some of the key clients would be Sketchers, VVAs and many, many others. It's a huge list which I can't give out some for various reasons. But the new business performance is called Infant Asset. So it has been the organic group. So I'm just, yeah, that's one of the big focuses and that's something I'm also learning a lot with FCB and Red Dialog because we have strong brands here and the fact that we're learning with current brands is a big thing. Okay, what is the expectation from Dheeraj at this point? And you mentioned that, you know, India is the second biggest market for you cross. How soon do you want him to make it the first? Well, listen, I mean, one of the things I think as an industry we haven't done well necessarily is give great leaders time to build. And, you know, this is my 10th year at FCB and I think over that time I've been able to, with IPG support, build great teams in markets around the world. And so Dheeraj has time to build something very special and to continue the momentum that we have. And I think when I look at our growth rates now, when I look at the quarter that we've just had, we are exactly on track of the trajectory that I can see us going on, which is to, I think, solidify India's position even more in the importance to FCB globally and to create an abundance of great work that really helps us to prove the proposition that we have for so many of our clients around the world, around the power of that creative. So I wouldn't say there's a deadline in my mind. I think for me it's just about making sure that we have examples of that momentum day in and day out and Dheeraj and his team have done just that. I remember you were given the Herculean task of turning around one of FCB's worst performing markets and you did it beautifully. I think Rohit kind of proved that, you know, you can actually grab the awards and not part with it. What do you think you want to be known for at FCB? I think it's that. I think a couple of things. One is obviously, we keep talking about best work has to be in our biggest brands, right? And growth for our clients and for the organization. And for the people who come in who do the best work of their lifetime. Those are the three things I would say. And also Dheeraj, you were very excited about reporting to a global boss and Tyler. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm just trying to get the idea. I don't feel so excited. So what is the best piece of advice that Tyler has given you in the past six months and what is the most difficult part about leading one of the best performing markets for FCB football? I mean, what is the biggest challenge associated with that? So I mean, the good thing is that Tyler has peak very frequently, you know, sometimes I call it a curve, sometimes I call it a pitch, but I have time on his calendar all the time that I need it. And he's a continuous conversation, continuous guidance because I mean, I'm completely entering a new space here. So I call him very, very often. I mean, some of the things that I'm learning, one is how do you grow organically, right? Because in my past life, we grew a lot through new business acquisition, here we have very, very strong new relationships. We have a full-formal product who has just a lot of growth we can do when we are already doing just to cross-sell, upsell, doing more for our current plants. So that's the muscle I'm growing and that's a muscle which is probing very well. Secondly, what Tyler always says is that everything is a point in time, right? And everything changes, take your time, do it well. So, unlike many other systems, there is no pressure, inordinate pressure, to engineer things in an unnatural way and I like that. Oh, it's one last question to both of you. You know, just like Tyler has Susan on the global level, who are we gonna see as your partner in FCB India? I mean, who's going to join you as a CCO, group CCO in India? Structure in India, we have four agencies and four brands and the structure is we have four COs, each CO, this is CO for each of the brand and the CCO for each of the brands. And that allows us to, you know, have so many clients across each of the brands. It also allows us to have peak-level talent in each of these brands and we can focus because it's an agency and they're working on, say, eight and brands together. We can focus and give time to our brands in a good way and that's the structure going forward. So, there will be four COs and four CCOs. And will there be a group CCO? I'm not sure about that right now. Okay, we hope to hear about that soon. You'll be the first to know. We have that on record. Super, thank you so much for a very candid chat and yeah, wishing you all the success at CAN and more. Thank you so much.