Inside the Mind of Rishad Tobaccowala

Rishad is one of the smartest minds in the ad business. He moved from Bombay to Chicago to do an MBA in Marketing and Finance at the University of Chicago, got hired at Leo Burnett and stayed for his entire career. That's not entirely correct- he worked his way across and up to the very top of the Publicis Group becoming Chief Strategist and Member of the Directoire. He spent his career thinking about the future especially in media and digital- he had roles at Starcom and help created a number of companies and was Chairman of Digitas LBI and Razorfish.

He has a unique set of experiences that make him well-equipped to take observe some of the key macro trends and developments. 

In 2020, Rishad wrote his first book "Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data" which was critically acclaimed with Strategy and Business naming it one of its top business books of 2020.

...he makes as thoroughly documented a case as I have come across for why the businesses that thrive are those whose leaders know that what made them great is their human resources. Tobaccowala singles out mighty customer- and user-focused corporations — Walmart, Starbucks, Domino’s, Google — that have “successfully reoriented their thinking on how to fuse technology and humanity,” while he warns of “data-blinded companies” that stumble when they do not correct such matters as “stifled employees [who are] not encouraged to contribute ideas or insights” and “poor customer service due to automated, robotic processes that cause frustration and hurt the brand.”....

In my conversation with Rishad, we talked about the book, what he has learned from his experiences, his background, and his thoughts on the business implications of the pandemic.