Ishan Raina, Founder, Raina Advisory Services
Ishan Raina is the founder of Raina Advisory Services. He was earlier the founder and CEO of Havas Media. He has also founded Out of House Media and Ignited Digital Services.
Podcast
Overview
We all need stability in life. We work hard and juggle among different companies in our initial career days so that we can finally settle on a good package. Willing to be settled in life is a good thing, but sometimes this stability ceases you to look into the opportunity in front of your eyes.
When you are stable in your career and you still get an opportunity, the big dilemma arises, would you like to jump from something steady to something unknown and uncertain or would you like to stay in your comfort zone to avoid the risk of losing what you possess?
Our guest for today, Ishan Raina, also faced this dilemma. Good for him, he chose the former and is now a very successful entrepreneur. We are delighted to welcome Ishan Raina to our show.
Ishan Raina is the founder of Raina Advisory Services. He was earlier the founder and CEO of Havas Media. He has also founded Out of House Media and Ignited Digital Services.
Ishan has the credit of founding some very successful startups, however, he has not always been an entrepreneur, before founding his first startup, he was in the top management of an agency. He was also a board member of global companies.
What made Ishan move from management to entrepreneurship?
Talking about how he moved from management to entrepreneurship, Ishan says that if you go back to India in the 1990s, you could see it changing. The ecosystem and environment were gradually changing.
That change brought numerous opportunities with it, some people availed and some didn’t. Well, Ishan took that opportunity. He calls it a happy accident but he says that one has to be mentally ready for some discomfort after making a bold decision of shifting careers.
Ishan’s learnings in his journey of shifting to entrepreneurship
Ishan tells us that his first gig, Havas Media, was a joint venture with a global company, where Ishan had 40% of the company’s share. He says that it was a very smooth landing for him.
It was his first experience working with a global organisation and he got a lot to learn from it. For Ishan it was an accelerated learning and wealth creation was a happy by-product of that.
His second gig was a good company to have. It also had its ups and downs.
Ishan’s third gig, Out of House Media, was a difficult one. He says that with that venture, he learnt not to be very ambitious after turning 50. He suggests being ambitious in the mid-30s.
He believes that the beauty of being young is that you have very little to lose. At that time your risk-taking ability, speed learning and adaptability etc are much stronger.
What makes a brand tick
Ishan tells us that everything today is changing rapidly. The changes in branding and advertising, that used to take place over a decade or so, are taking place in three to four years.
He says that instead of studying consumer behaviour and trends, entrepreneurs today need to understand their behaviour and trends in this era. So one has to understand how he is going to work three years from now.
He also believes that things like artificial intelligence and psychometrics are going to be key parts of the brands. He concludes that the ability to invest in yourself and the ability to know where the customer is going to create successful brands.
Social media influencers and Brands
Ishan says that for his generation only the actors or cricketers used to be influencers. But he is happy that today even the people from rural and undeveloped areas are making progress and becoming influencers on their own.
Ishan believes that these influencers are going to overtake the people who manage brands unless those brands have the humility to learn from them.
Profile
Mr. Ishan Raina is on the Board of the Bank since April 30, 2016.
Mr. Raina has spent 35 years in Advertising and Media. He was the Founder, Chairman, and Joint Venture Partner of Havas in India (Euro RSCG Advertising and MPG Media), and served on the Global Management Board of Havas Global, based in Paris and New York. He has also been the Founder and Chairman of Ignitee Digital Solutions and Out of Home Media (OOH Media) Pvt. Ltd., in India.
Mr. Raina is currently the founder and Chairman of Raina Advisory and is an advisor to the National Skills Development Corporation, advising and supporting senior management teams of various industries to help create jobs and livelihood for people.
