Image of Praful Akali
Jury

Praful Akali
Founder
Medulla Communications

MUMBAI, INDIA // Praful has led Medulla to win the Third Healthcare Agency of the Year in 2015 and the Agency of the Year in 2016 at Cannes Lions, probably becoming the first agency ever to win AOTY after less than 8 years of existence.  

He’s also been a speaker at the Cannes Lions 2016. Praful is one of the rare profiles that have succeeded in both client and agency roles or for that matter, in both strategic and creative roles.

Praful Akali has integrated creative and strategy with a base of medical understanding throughout his career: Started creatively as a journalist and loved it, parallely added medical expertise through a pharmacy education, moved up the ladder into strategy with a degree from India’s leading B-school, built on this base with eight years of marketing experience on leading consumer healthcare brands at Pfizer, Boots, etc. – finally indulging his creative bent once again by founding Medulla in 2008, now one of the world’s most awarded creative healthcare advertising agencies.  

Praful’s leadership has helped Medulla win some of the biggest pharma and consumer healthcare clients in India, Asia-Pacific and Africa including J&J, P&G, GSK, GSKCH, Novartis, Merck and many others.

This client trust is supported by big wins at the Rx Club Show, New York; India’s biggest mainline advertising awards, GoaFest; all in addition to Medulla’s famous wins at the Cannes Lions Health. 

In addition to his role at Medulla, Praful is also part of the Founding Team at its sister agency, What’s Your Problem – a problem-solving, full-service digital agency.