MPW 2023: How Devika Bulchandani is crafting Ogilvy’s global success

Burger King, Pernod Ricard, Samsung, Verizon, Unilever, Nestlé and IBM—as diverse as these brands are, they have one thing in common. Some or most of their advertising needs are met by one global ad agency, Ogilvy—part of the £14.43-billion international advertising and marketing services group WPP, that also owns Wunderman Thomson, GroupM and Kantar, among others.

Leading the charge for these brands to create a space in the hearts of consumers is Ogilvy’s Global CEO Devika Bulchandani, who has been living in the US for over three decades now. Having moved to the country in the early ’90s to do her Masters in Communications from the University of Southern California, Bulchandani is now counted amongst the biggest names in the world of advertising. But to people who know her, she is still just “Dev”.

Ask her about her experience of leading a global organisation with operations spread across 131 offices in 93 countries, and she has a stoic answer. “I have been doing it for a while,” she told Business Today during a recent interaction in Mumbai. “What is becoming more important is to lead like an Indian, and I would not have said that, say, 10 years ago,” she added.

Bulchandani joined Ogilvy in March 2021 as Global President and CEO of North America; in September 2022, she was elevated to the corner office. Prior to Ogilvy, she had spent over two decades at McCann Worldgroup, where the success of the Mastercard advertising concept—that evolved into a global marketing platform—was a big moment for her.

While Indians holding top jobs globally is not an uncommon sight anymore, that’s not the case in advertising. But at Ogilvy—a well-acknowledged creative powerhouse—Bulchandani is fluidly overseeing everything from advertising to public relations and experience to consulting, among other responsibilities. But prod her a little about being a woman leader, and she makes it clear that it’s important for her to show other women, “it can be done”. She admits, she is “quite militant” that women must get a seat at the table. “Someone once told me about how I never speak about being a brown woman. My response was, ‘I never speak about being a woman’.”

@krishnagopalan