Mumbai: DAN Consult, the consulting division from the house of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), has roped in Karl Gomes as Partner – Customer Experience (CX). Gomes will be based out of Mumbai and will report to Lalit Bhagia, CEO, DAN Consult. As Partner – CX, his chief mandate here will be to help lead a client-facing customer experience and build platforms and content-strategy practice.
Prior to joining DAN Consult, Gomes was ‘chief fanatic officer’ at Fanatics. Armed with 25 years of experience, Gomes has evolved from a passionate graphic designer to designing influential campaigns to creating purposeful experiences. Co-founder of Fanatics and agencydigi, he was National Creative Director – Digital at Rediffusion Y&R before venturing out as an entrepreneur.
Commenting on the appointment, Lalit Bhagia, CEO, DAN Consult said, “The traditional consulting firms have always focused on frameworks and left-brain thinking. However, in today’s digital world, there is no one framework that fits all businesses. If that were the case, the big 4s (Deloitte, KPMG, E&Y, PwC) would have made every start-up a unicorn. Today, a business growth strategy involves firing multiple bullets, calibrating and re-calibrating till you find a cannon ball.”
“Hence, to succeed in a digital world, you need a combination of the right brain and left brain thinking,” he added. “Today’s customers demand new experiences driven by personalised channels, content and choices. Karl’s legendary work as one of the best digital creative and experience guys in the country is well known. He brings in that amazing right brain thinking to all our growth hacking assignments and will help build a specific practice focusing on CX.”
On his new role, Gomes said, “Word of mouth has always been the most powerful mode of communication. People don’t just talk about advertising; they talk about the product, the service and the experience. And CX has become even more important as data and technology have increased competitive pressure in every market.
He added, “I have worked with Lalit in the past in various capacities and he has seamlessly blended right brain and left brain thinking, emotional and functional goals, purpose and performance to drive exponential growth for various businesses. I truly believe DAN Consult has the vision, appetite and the people to take this opportunity to the next level.”
Inspired by purpose and driven by performance, Gomes has won numerous awards at Cannes, Webby, One Show, New York Festivals, Adfest, Promax, Effies, Kyoorius, Abby and AAAI, including the first Indian Cyber Shortlist and Lion at Cannes 2008, the first Indian Webby award and India’s first Pencil at the One Show Interactive. He has been on various local and international award juries. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a guest lecturer at various management institutes.
