MUMBAI: In tandem with its excecutive rehaul, production house UTV has made a strategic appointment to complete the process of putting the new team in place.

Contract Advertising's associate vice-president Abhijit Pradhan joins the production major on 1 September as vice-president.

Speaking exclusively to indiantelevision.com, UTV COO Vikas Varma states, "Abhijit is the best as far as strategy planning and implementation is concerned. He is going to be my biggest asset. He will also be key in providing 'outside the industry creative instigators' for ensuring creative freshness. He will be a strategic factor in UTV making a paradigm shift from the way a traditional production house operates."

Channel directors will now be reporting to Pradhan who will be directly reporting to Varma.

Pradhan, who was with Contract for six years, was a brand custodian as well as a founding team member of Core Consulting, which is a marketing/ customer consulting outfit started by Contract Advertising (a member of the WPP group). Cadburys, Godrej and Portico were some strategic accounts that he handled at the agency.