Mumbai: Rediffusion has announced the appointment of Rajendra Gupta as chief growth officer, based at its corporate office here.

An engineer from BHU-IT and an MBA from FMS Delhi, Gupta has been in advertising, industrial solutioning and telecom for well over 35 years. This will be his second stint at Rediffusion. He earlier worked at Rediffusion Delhi and Mumbai from 1994 to 2002. “Rediffusion is my home. I have had some of my biggest professional successes and victories here. I hope that track record remains intact and unblemished in this innings too,” said Gupta.

Gupta will be a group resource with growth and business development responsibilities across Rediffusion, Everest, Rediffusion Healthcare, Rediffusion Direct (recently rechristened Rediffusion FutureTech), Rediffusion SmartMedia, Mogae Media and the Indian Institute of Human Brands (IIHB), said the agency in a statement.

Gupta had worked at Dunlop and Wipro before joining Rediffusion in the mid-’90s. He was seconded to Bharti twice by Rediffusion – first to Airtel Delhi and then to Bharti Madhya Pradesh to work as an expert implant in then growing, new company. He has also worked in telecom with Reliance for over a decade.

In his earlier tenure at Rediffusion, Gupta was instrumental in bringing the coveted Bharti group business to the agency. He was part of the team that launched Airtel in 1995. During his previous stint, Rajendra led successful pitches to bring in Casio, Sony, Panasonic, Canon, Atlas cycles, Singer sewing machines, BPL, and many more accounts to the agency, said the statement.

“Rajendra is special. He is also Rediffusion’s lucky mascot for new business and new horizons. He combines the aggressiveness of a good salesman with a very good understanding of technology. And over the years he has become excellent advertising professional. Such a combination of virtues and talent is rare,” stated Rediffusion managing director Sandeep Goyal.