Me at Grants? Nothing taken for granted

Neela Marikkar, is the personification of efficiency. A woman who has scaled the summit of success, she is a complete package: a wife, mother and a canny business woman. This week Reminiscences of Gold features this remarkable lady who is head of Grant McCann Erickson, a leading advertising agency in Sri Lanka.

“I was born in Colombo. I have lived here as a child till I went overseas for higher studies. I had wonderful parents who provided us with a very loving family environment. I have just one sister; she and I are very close. When I look back I think I’m one of the lucky people because I had a really wonderful childhood.”

Neela had her education at St. Bridget’s Convent and recollecting her school days, she said: “Even though it was a very conservative Catholic school, it was a great institution. It taught us discipline and strong values which has guided me throughout my life. I believe I’m a good product of the school.” After finishing school her ambition was to study Law at the Colombo University. However things began to change as she got an opportunity to go to India to study Art. “I always loved Art. My father was also an artist and he always encouraged me to paint. So when I had the opportunity to go to the J.J. School of Art in Bombay I took it. I was around 17 at the time and I thought that it would be nice to do something different and go away from home. Till then I had led a very sheltered and comfortable life at home and I was up for a challenge. I think if I went into Law my life would have been totally different to what it is today. That is the strange twist of fate. It was a great experience for me although it was a hard and tough life. My very comfortable life in Sri Lanka was put on hold as I had to bus it to college and I had to stay in a basic school hostel in a rough part of Bombay.

That experience really grounded me and made me very independent. I made many wonderful friends during my time in Bombay. Some of them have gone on to become famous designers in New York. After that I did a period of study in the United States at Kent State University. And later at Columbia University, Graduate School of Business.”

Top opinion makers

Neela’s father was the Late Reggie Candappa who founded Grant Advertising in 1958 and grew up amidst the Advertising and Media business. “My father exposed me to it. I was very close to him. As a little girl I followed him everywhere like Mary’s little lamb. I spent hours with him in the office.

He would let me sit quietly in a corner in his office and draw. He regularly took me to Lake House including the block makers department which fascinated me; at that time all the press ads were done on blocks. I never thought then I would actually get into advertising. But thinking back, it was in my blood.”

“My father was also a journalist. He started out at Lake House and had many fond memories. He was an Art Director who went on to become a famous political cartoonist. I still have many of his cartoons with me. His peers were famous journalists like Tarzie Vittachi, Aubrey Collette and Denzil Peries. They were the top opinion makers then. So there was a lot of intellectual discussion at our home, opening out a world of information and worldliness.”

After marriage, Neela moved to London and spent about 10 years there. She worked in a publishing company as an Assistant Art Director. “We loved London and we had a great life there but we wanted our children to grow up in Sri Lanka. We wanted them to have Sri Lankan roots. My father was also keen that I come back and start helping him in the business. So we gave up our life in London, sold our house and everything and moved back here.

Social issues

“I joined Grants as an Art Director and I was treated like any other employee. No special treatment. I was just like everybody else. I had to prove beyond doubt that I was there because I had the skills to do the job and not because I was his daughter. I moved into executive management in 1993 which was when we went in to partnership with McCann Erickson.

“He made me the CEO of the company. Once he gave me the reigns, he took a back seat and never interfered. In that way he was fantastic. After he passed away I took over as Chairperson.”

Neela says that the advertising business during her father’s time was a lot different to what it is today. “In those days when my father was running the business everybody wanted to be in advertising. There were a lot of good people around to hire as the communications industry had not developed. Today creative people have many options.

“If you look at the media at that time, there was ANCL, and a couple of other newspaper groups; there was only two state run television stations and SLBC. Today you have 47 FM radio channels alone. There are 15 television channels as well as cable TV with multiple channels; a large number of newspapers and magazines and the explosion with digital. There are so many options now that its very challenging. So we find it increasingly difficult to attract good people to the industry and when you do, they are expensive.”

Neela says that even though the nature of the business has changed very much, she still tries to maintain the ‘family culture’ at Grants “which was something started by my father and it is very special. The atmosphere is homely and relational with everybody working together as one big family. The business has grown a lot since my father’s time. Then we had just one agency Grants, today Grants is one of the largest media buyers in the country. In addition we have six companies in the group which include our own television and audio production facilities, PR agency, Youth agency, outdoor and retail agency and more recently our digital agency. These are some of the new areas I have introduced to the group. So it has grown a lot. Today we have 175 people working in the Grant Group.”

Business leaders

Neela maintains that being a woman is neither an advantage or a disadvantage. “If you are professional and you do your job well and have the respect of your staff and clients, I don’t think it matters which gender you belong to. Being a corporate woman leading a business and being a mother and wife running a family is no easy task and it’s always a challenge. If you are in a man’s world you have to work like a man. It is tough but I think women are natural multi-taskers. They can handle multiple things at the same time and they make good managers.”

She also uses her advertising network to campaign on social issues in particular dealing with women and children. “We do a lot of public service advertising free of charge. I’m always interested in social causes because I am a mother and I feel for issues.”

Neela has been a Peace Activist and was the President of ‘Sri Lanka First’ which was a peace initiative undertaken by a group of business leaders during the time of the ceasefire supporting post conflict reconstruction.

She also consulted for the UNDP in their Invest in Peace programme. She is a member of ‘Women Waging Peace Network.’ She has spoken at several forums including Harvard University, Woodrow Wilson Centre, The Hague on the Millennium Development Goals and ‘The Table of Free Voices’ in Berlin. Immediately after the war ended she was invited to speak at the European Commission where she made a case for the country.

“At that time there were many negative views about the country and how the conflict ended. I’m really happy that I have had the opportunity to go and make a case for the Sri Lankan people not only in Brussels but in many parts of the world.”