Goafest Update: Senthil Kumar and Sonal Dabral to chair Juries

The Goafest Creative Abbys has announced the third set of Jury for the Awards. The Awards Governing Council of Goafest 2016 has declared the Jury Chairs for Integrated, OOH/Ambient, Branded Content and Public Relations.

Sonal Dabral, chairman and chief creative officer, DDB Mudra, will chair the OOH/Ambient Jury of Creative Abby, while Senthil Kumar, chief creative officer, J Walter Thompson will chair the Integrated category. Tarun Katial, chief executive officer, Reliance Broadcast Network, will be Jury Chair for the Branded Content category, while Paresh Chaudhry, chief executive officer, Madison PR, will chair the Public Relations category. The next round of Goa Fest ABBY Award 2016 Jury Chairs will be announced soon.

Dabral has over two decades of experience in advertising industry and has curated many winning campaigns for local, regional and multinational brands. He began his career with Lintas and later went on to work with Mudra Delhi and Ogilvy Mumbai and Malaysia. Thereafter, as the chairman and ECD of Ogilvy Singapore, he helped the agency become the hottest agency in the region and the No.1 creative office of the WPP global network. In 2007, he led the agency to be the third highest-awarded agency in the world at Cannes Lions. He is a prolific winner in most regional and international Award shows such as Cannes, Clio, D & AD, One Show, LIA, Andy Awards, AdFest, and Spikes.

Kumar has been celebrated in India and recognised globally for the ability to amplify deep local insights into simple ideas that solve complicated marketing challenges. He has won India's first and second Film Gold Lions at The Cannes Lions International Festival in 2009. His ideas have helped build several brands such as Levi's, Nike, Google and Ford in India. Kumar's name can be spotted in several creative books under the classifications of writer, creative director, designer, photographer, and film maker.

Katial is at the helm of one of India's youngest media houses. With a stint in advertising, followed by over a decade of experience in broadcast with brands such as Star and Sony and now Reliance Broadcast, he has led high decibel launches of industry tent poles. Katial was also voted the NewsCorp Achiever for Asia and was included among the best in the 'India Today 30 on 30' list. He was also part of the team that won the first Media Gold at Cannes.

Chaudhry has over 24 years of brand communication and reputation management experience across industries and key global markets, and is also founder president of the 'Indian Forum Of Corporate Communicators' (IFCC). His last assignment was as Group president - corporate communications, Reliance Industries. Prior to that, he was head of communications at HUL and communications leader, Unilever South Asia. From building the corporate brand of Ranbaxy in North America, Europe and India, to aligning regional communications country teams to bring alive "the transition to one Unilever brand" and driving the corporate name change from "HLL" to "HUL", to putting together systems and processes for effective global (internal and external) communications at RIL, Chaudhry has led communications for many campaigns in India.

Presented by the Advertising Club and AAAI, the Goafest ABBYs 2016 will once again see the entire advertising and marketing fraternity come together in Goa from April 7 to 9 at The Grand Hyatt, Bambolim, North Goa.

Founded in 1954, The Ad Club is an industry body that provides a platform for professionals from the advertising, marketing, media, research and communications fraternity to gain from each other's experience. The mission of the Club is to create forums and events to help its members improve their professional competence, thereby raising the standards of Indian advertising. It is the organiser of the some of the popular events of the industry such as Ad Club Awards, The ABBYs, EFFIEs, EMVIEs and Young Achievers.