When Piyush Pandey walked into Ogilvy & Mather’s Mumbai office in 1982, advertising was still speaking a borrowed language, essentially polished, urbane, and predominantly English. Four decades later, when he stepped down as Executive Chairman, Indian advertising was speaking Hindi, and more importantly, the idiom of India itself. Pandey, who passed away on 23 October 2025, at the age of 70, was the storyteller who made brands sound Indian without losing their soul.

Cricket to the creative boardroom

Born in Jaipur in 1955, Pandey grew up in a bustling household of nine siblings, among them singer-actor Ila Arun and filmmaker Prasoon Pandey. Before advertising, he was a cricketer, playing Ranji Trophy for Rajasthan and captaining its Under-22 side. The long train journeys, chai-stall co

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