Former Weber Shandwick India leadership launch PR firm ‘First Partners’

 11th July 2016    PR News 
 Paarul Chand

Public Relations industry veterans Atul Ahluwalia and Dilip Yadav today announced that they have joined hands to launch an independent communications consulting firm, First Partners. Atul, formerly vice chairman of Weber Shandwick India and Dilip, earlier the managing director, client services for Weber Shandwick India and managing director for Creation, both quit last year after working at Weber for nearly two decades.

Headquartered in the national capital region, First Partners will be a full service communications firm, providing end-to-end services to clients seeking senior counsel, creative media agnostic solutions with an all India reach.

Announcing the launch, Atul Ahluwalia said, “Today’s boardroom priorities require the communication function to be served by senior experts who can bring both business perspective and communications expertise to the table. We believe that there is room for a new consultancy with the senior depth and width to become clients’ first port of call for providing solutions which drive business results. As a new brand, we will stand for an unmatched combination of senior talent associated with large consultancies with the agility of a start-up. We want to be our clients’ First Partners.”

First Partners also announced that it is acquiring the business of Go2Media, a 16 month old media specialist advisory set up by Santanu Gogoi, earlier vice president of the corporate practice for Weber Shandwick India. Santanu will join Atul and Dilip as part of the founding team.Other senior members of First Partner’s consulting team comprise of Poonam Tibrewal, consultant, brand communications & PR with Cargill India; Param Shobhit, ex digital practices Edelman and MSL as the lead for digital and Gopika Kaul, ex Time Warner Inc, New York and Indiatimes, New Delhi as the lead for content.

First Partnersp lans to serve 15 cities across India.