Growing up in India, I was surrounded by books. My parents loved to read, and we always had books everywhere. Once every few weeks on weekends they would take me to the local bookstores and for every book they selected for me (mostly a Penguin Classic in softcover), I would get to choose a more recent bestseller. I still have many of those classics or have bought newer copies of them, but have long forgotten my own selections.
I soon began to write short stories and poems of a sort and my favorite subject was literature. I wanted to be a writer and take courses in doing so but my father dissuaded me, saying I should pursue mathematics. If you love writing, you can always do it, he said, but you will never learn math yourself. The math will help you be more employable, and it will teach you to think. After much drama about me not being allowed to pursue my dreams, I agreed to pursue an advanced degree in math.
My mother consoled me by saying I could keep writing and reading, and one day, who knows?—you may end up writing a book. My younger sister Moeena, who used to listen to my storytelling and to this day bears my yarns and storytelling with a smile, reminds me of this these days as my book gets ready for publication.
This book wouldn’t have existed if not for my parents, not only because without them I wouldn’t have existed, but because their love of books made me appreciate the power of words, and their insight on the importance of analytic thinking made me appreciate the rigor of math.
While this book is not about advertising or marketing, it is deeply informed by my thirty-seven-year business career in these fields, which aim to achieve business results through the alchemy of data and hard business decisions, fused with storytelling informed by people’s desires and dreams.
After graduating from business school, a single company took a chance on an immigrant with a student visa. It was the Leo Burnett Company in Chicago. Thirty-seven years later, as I prepare for a new career as writer, speaker, and advisor I am still in the Leo Burnett building, which has been part of the Publicis Groupe since 2002.
Over the past four decades, as communication technology has changed with the revolution of cable, search engines, social media, and mobile, and the world has become more globalized and people’s expectations and behaviors have changed, I’ve been fortunate to have a front-row seat on how businesses and people adapt to and align with such changes, because of Leo Burnett and Publicis Groupe.
The clients, our partners, and most importantly the talent and management at these companies, have not only provided a career and friendship, but the experience and learning that is contained in this book. Just a few stories of these people made it into the book, but the spirit and generosity of all of them informs every page.
While this book wouldn’t have existed without the family I was born into and my Publicis Groupe family, it finds its inspiration in my immediate family. My wife Rekha, who has known me since I was twelve, and our daughters Ria and Rohini, who wondered, when seeing photographs of my younger days, why their astonishingly smart and beautiful mother decided to give me a chance. In fact, they even wonder these days!
For many years I have written a blog and have been encouraged to write a book, but the intensity of work and family didn’t allow me to do so. A few years ago, as my long-time bosses retired or evolved their roles, and I completed thirty-five years at Publicis and was getting close to sixty years old, I decided it was time to plan career 2.0.
It was time to attempt to write a book.
I shared my thoughts about future plans with my outgoing boss, Maurice Lévy, and my incoming boss, Arthur Sadoun, and after some discussion they enabled the writing of this book by allowing me to evolve my role and significantly free up a large swath of time necessary to write. The exceptions they made and support and understanding they provided over the past two years has made all the difference.
Bruce Wexler has been instrumental in making this book happen. He helped me write a proposal that got me an agent, who enabled me to get an advance from HarperCollins to write this book. Bruce not only helped with guiding me through the proposal process but then served as a coach and initial editor to help me craft the first draft.
Giles Anderson of Anderson Literary Agency immediately got the idea of the book and agreed to take me on as a client. As my agent he drummed up interest in the proposal from major American publishers for English rights and procured advances for global Mandarin rights from a leading Chinese publisher.
I had been a longtime fan of Ken Auletta, author and writer at The New Yorker, and finally got to meet with him three years ago, when he was writing a book about the advertising industry. Ken has been a great advisor and mentor in that he encouraged me to write this book and shared his techniques and volunteered to help me with my first draft. His great enthusiasm for it, as well as some clear advice on improving it, gave me a great deal of inspiration. Ken continued to help by agreeing to write the foreword to this book.
In addition to Ken I shared my first draft with folks who know me well and would not be shrinking violets in giving me critical feedback.
Thanks to Courtney Acuff, Valerie Beauchamp, Jeannie Caggiano, Alok Choudhary, Rebecca Clarkson, Susan Giannino, Tim Harris, Jack Klues, Laura Krajecki, Christian Kugel, Maurice Lévy, Helen Lin, Jeff Marshall, Saneel Radia, Angela Steele, Alex von Plato, and Michael Wiley, who took time to provide detailed notes and feedback that have significantly enhanced and informed this book.
Emmanuel Andre, in addition to his role as the chief talent officer of Publicis Groupe, is an accomplished professional photographer who volunteered his time and talent to take the cover photo.
This book has been sculpted into its final form and birthed into the world by the terrific team at HarperCollins. My two amazing editors, Tim Burgard and Amanda Bauch, who not only are very talented but awfully funny and great to work with. Jeff James, my publisher, who bet on the book and then gave me an opportunity to present it at the company sales conference, and Hiram Centeno and Sicily Axton, a dynamic duo whose expertise in marketing and publicity I lean on.
I grew up believing books are amazing and magical things. Getting to write one and see how it comes to form has added and not detracted from the magic.
Thank you to all the magicians who made it possible.