Kalpesh Patankar Steps Down From VML India
Kalpesh Patankar has stepped down as group chief creative officer at VML India, ending his latest stint with the agency.
- Announced the exit in a LinkedIn post thanking colleagues, clients and the wider VML network
- Before VML India, he was chief creative officer at Leo Burnett in Dubai
- Spent more than a decade with VMLY&R as chief creative officer, MENA
- Career spans senior creative leadership across India and the Middle East
What Kalpesh Patankar Said
Reflecting on his tenure, Patankar described his time at VML India as an important chapter shaped by the people he worked with and the work produced during his association with the agency.
No next move was named, which is normal for an exit announced by the person rather than the network.
The Gulf Route Back To India
His long association with VMLY&R placed him in senior creative roles across the MENA region before the Leo Burnett Dubai job and then the return to India.
That path is more common than it looks and rarely discussed. The Gulf pays creative leaders well and gives them multi-market remits early, and a proportion of the senior creative talent running Indian agencies today came back through it. What they bring home is experience of working across markets that do not share a language or a censor, which is a specific discipline.
Another Move In A Season Of Them
The departure adds to a run of transitions in senior creative leadership as agencies recalibrate their structures and creative offerings.
The group chief creative officer title is part of why. It was created to sit above several agency brands inside one network, and it works only where those brands genuinely share work. Where they do not, it becomes a role with wide responsibility and narrow authority, which is a difficult job to hold for long anywhere.
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