26 Mar Shakeel Khokar
In 1992 Shakeel began his career writing copy at JWT.
With every tagline that reflected his intuitive strategic flair and eye for the bigger picture, he drew deeper into the world of Strategy and Account Planning.
His early knack for strategic creative work led him to Pakistan’s premier media group Jang as Business Development Manager, a role that cemented his lifelong love for Media and its contribution to brand building.
In 1996 he joined OrientMcCann as Media and Business Director on HSBC, Coke, Reckitt and Gilette. His successes at Orient earned him the title of Regional Director at Interflow. Under Shakeel’s watch, Interflow’s revenues doubled, gaining him a place on the Executive Management board.
Hordes of great campaigns and crazy hours later, Shakeel rejoined Jang Group as Director Marketing and Sales to launch GEO. The brand became an immediate success and stands to date as an example of brilliant brand building.
With GEO and Interflow exemplifying him, by 2006 Shakeel was picked by Ogilvy&Mather to launch brand Ogilvy in Pakistan as CEO and Chief Creative.
Shakeel’s leadership quickly won Ogilvy some of Pakistan’s biggest and most exciting brands:
KESC, Coke, Mondelez portfolio (including Cadbury and Tang), British American Tobacco, Warid, Nestle and Unilever brands to name a few.
During his tenure, Ogilvy grew to become one of Pakistan’s most formidable agencies with the revenues to match. Shakeel also launched SohoSquare at Ogilvy and by 2009 Ogilvy had become Pakistan’s 2nd largest agency by revenues.
For all his strategic-savvy, Shakeel is really a storyteller at heart.
Aggravated by the institutionalized and sanitized advertising around him, Shakeel went on to found Slingshot in 2014, a Creative Camp that specializes in strategically-sound storytelling, from Ideation to Execution.
This old-school/new-age agency model of Slingshot met with quick success. Slingshot produced over 40 ad films in just two short years, and won a couple of big local clients to boot.
However the only thing Shakeel loves more than a good story is a good challenge!
And so today he is back on home ground as CEO of Interflow, excited to shepherd in his ethos of disruptive (and always productive!) creativity that takes no prisoners.