Ambitious Achiever

It’s been a remarkable journey from the sleepy town of Dehradun to the big world of advertising, where she’s carved her niche

- Salil Panchal

Anupriya Acharya is a 20-plus year veteran in the media and advertising world. But she was hardly a dreamy-eyed youngster who aspired to carve her niche in the competitive industry when she grew up in Dehradun. The mandate for her and her two sisters was “to work” and be ready with a Plan B if that did not materialise.

In the then sleepy town of Dehradun, she had only two good options—either work with ONGC (which had a drilling technology institute and an academy there) or join the Indian Air Force. Neither worked out and so, on a friend’s suggestion, Acharya applied for and bagged her first job, as an assistant media planner with ad agency Ogilvy & Mather in Chennai, in 1994.