Mahesh Murthy: Founder and CEO of Pinstorm
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Mahesh Murthy is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Pinstorm, a digital marketing agency. He is an Indian Entrepreneur, Marketer, and Investor focusing on early stage startups. He is also a managing partner of early-stage fund Seedfund. He is also a writer, speaker and columnist. He was one of the Top Writers on Quora in 2014.
Mahesh Murthy- Biography
| Name | Mahesh Murthy |
|---|---|
| Born | 11 September, 1965 |
| Age | 55 (2020) |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Education | Kendriya Vidyalaya, Osmania University |
| Profession | Investor, Marketer, Writer, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Columnist |
| Position | Founder and CEO, Pinstorm |
| Known for | Column in WSJ, Businessworld, Business Today |
| Television | Business Baazigar, The Pitch |
Mahesh Murthy- Personal Life
Mahesh Murthy- Education
Mahesh Murthy- Professional Life
Mahesh Murthy- Marketing Journey
Mahesh Murthy- Director
Mahesh Murthy- Angel Investor
Mahesh Murthy- Pinstorm
Mahesh Murthy- Controversies
Mahesh Murthy- Opinions
Niku Mandal
Mahesh Murthy- Personal Life
Mahesh Murthy was born and brought up in a Tamil Brahmin family. His father was a Colonel in the Indian Army. Â
Mahesh Murthy- Education
Mahesh Murthy completed his primary education from Kendriya Vidyalaya Picket, Secunderabad. Later, he got admitted in Osmania University to study chemical engineering, from where he dropped out at the age of 17.
Yash Gupta
Mahesh Murthy- Professional Life
Mahesh Murthy has explored varied aspects of job throughout his career. He started off as an advertising agent and later, became an entrepreneur. He worked for several well-known companies as a marketing specialist. He has also experienced the struggle of establishing a TV channel and series. He experimented with many startup companies by funding them.
He founded Pinstorm, a digital marketing firm in 2004. He co-founded an early stage startup Seedfund in 2006. He assisted in redesigning the website of Carwale, Voonik and RedBus.
Mahesh Murthy- Marketing Journey
Mahesh Murthy worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman for Eureka Forbes after dropping out of college. He further founded his first ever cleaning service company, Vaclean.
He also worked for an advertising agency called FCB (then FCB/Ulka) and Grey Advertising (then Trikaya Grey) in India. He won awards for the work done for clients including Network copiers. He further shifted to Ogilvy & Mather, Hong Kong where he was employed to work for clients including Unilever, The Economist, HP, Microsoft, Pepsi, and MTV.
He later moved to CSK Partners, Portland where he got an opportunity to work at Yahoo! and on Amazon's "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" campaign. He then started exploring the e-commerce domain. He was positioned as the vice-president of marketing for iCat, a publisher of e-commerce software that was acquired by Intel.
Avantika Bhardwaj
Mahesh Murthy- Director
Mahesh Murthy directed a series of six films for MTV with Shashanka Ghosh in 1994. He also won the New Directors Showcase award at the Cannes Lions.
He also ran an Indian music television channel- Channel V, as an acting GM for India. He revamped the position of the channel as a youth channel and also launched its website, vindia.com.
Mahesh Murthy- Angel Investor
Mahesh Murthy founded an angel fund, Passionfund in 2000. His funding agency invested in many startups like, Compassbox, WebDunia, Tulleeho, Geodesic, EBSDirect.
Mahesh Murthy- Pinstorm
Mahesh Murthy established an online advertising agency, Pinstorm on May, 2004. He is the CEO of the company. The headquarters of the company is in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. While the offices are also in New Delhi, Bangalore, Kuala Lumpur, Zurich, Singapore and Santa Clara.
Pinstorm provides an integrated digital advertising on a pay-for-performance basis, involving SEM, SEO, SMM, Display, ORM, Email, SMS, mobile marketing. It has connections with many advertising agents. About 120 employees currently work for the company.
Pinstorm is well known for its marketing efforts using Twitter and other social media networks. In 2005, the company was declared among the "Asia's Top 100 Technology Companies" in first "Red Herring 100 Asia list."
Mahesh Murthy- Controversies
Mahesh Murthy was alleged of multiple sexual harassment since 2013. After one year of the first allegation, nearly half a dozen women filed complaints against Murthy alleging sexual misconduct before the National Commission for Women (NCW).
In 2017, the Mumbai Police registered a case of sexual harassment against Murthy owing to the letter wrote by India's National Commission of Women about the complaints they received from various women. While Murthy has denied all these allegations.
Piyush Mishra
Mahesh Murthy- Opinions
Mahesh Murthy has been an advocate for net neutrality in India. He clashed with Marc Andreessen on the matter. He also attacked the high salaries paid to executives of Indian online companies such as Flipkart, arguing that such practices would encourage economic protectionism.
A thread: My personal experience with #TRPscam:
— Mahesh Murthy (@maheshmurthy) October 9, 2020
(1) It’s been rigged in India for at least 30 years
(2) Not just @Republic but many channels benefit
(3) Scam value is up to Rs. 25,000 cr a year
(3) Don't blame Republic, but @WPP that owns @Mindshare @GroupMworldwide @Ogilvy
1/n
In the year 2020, he tweeted on the malpractices and his personal experience of TRP scam on twitter. He wrote how TRP scam is rigged in India since 30 years. He mentioned the latest scam by Hindi news channel, Republic TV. He accorded that not only Republic TV but many channels do take benefits from them. The scam value is upto Rs.25,000 Crore within a year. He equated his thoughts of not blaming solely Republic TV, rather the WPP that owns Mindshare, GroupMworldwide and Ogilvy.
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