Surprised | Excited | Nervous

A year ago, the term Power Lunch was symbolic of the COO (@ LOWE LDB, Sri Lanka) inviting me to join him for a meal with his key team members.

Personally, that was a pleasant and reassuring sign that my work was speaking well for me.

Two days ago, I was surprised to receive an email from Prateek Srivastava (Group President- South @ O&M) inviting me to lunch with Shelly Lazarus and Miles Young!

Please allow me to introduce these highly decorated Advertising Professionals:


Shelly Lazarus, CEO & Chairperson of O&M Worldwide is a charismatic Ogilvy-ian with more than 35 years of Ogilvy Experience under her belt. She was recently featured on Fortune's annual Most Powerful Women in the World list.




Miles Young, Chairman of O&M Asia/Pacific, is a highly respected authority in the Advertising field. His career spans Lintas (now LOWE), Allen Brady & Marsh and O&M, which he joined in 1983.



Now coming back to the email, Prateek's invitation was a pleasant surprise, because the accompanying text read:

In case you are wondering why you have been chosen for this lunch, the answer is that you've been chosen as the "Young Tigers" for 2008. This is a programme in which we select some of our younger people to work on important projects on issues/opportunities that are of interest to Ogilvy.

Besides going through the recipients' list (15 of us) to ensure that I hadn't received the email accidentally; I also pinched myself a couple of times before asking Ashish to look at the email and confirm I wasn't dreaming all this up :)