Chief Creative Officer & Co-Founder, Taproot Dentsu, Mumbai
Popularly known as ‘Paddy’, Santosh Padhi started his advertising career 2 decade back. An art graduate from Mumbai, he started his carrier with DDB, than a good fruitful 10-year stint at Leo Burnett, where he was an Executive Creative Director and the National Head of Art. 9 years ago he start his new creative venture ‘Taproot India’.
Over the last 9 years, Taproot India has risen to become one of India’s most prominent creative agencies, notching up several accolades along the way. In its very first year it was the only agency in Asia to win a Gold Clio. The same year Taproot has been rated the No. 1 Independent Agency from India at Cannes and ranked amongst the Top 20 Independent Agencies in the World in the Cannes Survey. The agency was also declared the Best Performing Agency from India at Adfest 2010 with multiple Gold’s to its credit. Best Performing Indian Agency in 2011 at Spikes Asia, was a runner-up for Best Performing Independent Agency in 2012 the same year. In 2012 Taproot was as Indian & South Asian “Creative Agency of The Year” by Campaign Asia, Topped Gunn report released in 2013, Taproot India crowned “Creative Agency Of The Year” title at the Adfest Pattaya 2013 first ever Indian agency to win this title followed by a record 4 Gold’s at Cannes 2013 for their Times Of India Farmer Suicide Campaign, 2014 Cannes Gold for “I’m Mumbai” TV Campaign, 2015 the same piece picked up a grand prix at Spikes Asia.
Taproot has been rated in top three most awarded agency in India for last 8 years be it creative or effectiveness, be it at local or international show
His Conqueror Papers print campaign was one of the most awarded and celebrated print campaigns which was ranked the 11th most awarded print campaign in the world by the Gunn Report 2011.
Paddy holds the record for the most number of Cannes Lions (23) by an individual Indian creative from India. He has won gold’s at almost every advertising award show. With over 200 international and over 300 local awards as well as multiple Grand Prix titles under his belt, He is in top 10 Creative’s in the world according to the 2014 Cannes survey he is also been voted as top 40 Asians to look for, according to Campaign Asia’s survey in 2013. In 2015 he was nominated as the South Asian “Creative Person Of The Year” by Campaign Asia.
Paddy has deservedly served as a jury member for numerous national and international award shows including Cannes Lions twice, Clio, New York Festival thrice, London International Awards twice, Dubai Lynx, Adfest Pattaya, AdStar Busan Thrice, ADC, ANDY awards, Kancil Malaysian Award, Chilli-SriLankan Award and many other local advertising shows. He has also served as Jury President at Adfest, for Design and Print Craft Category.
