Santosh Padhi and Ayesha Ghosh, former chief creative officer, Wieden+Kennedy, and president, Wieden+Kennedy, have announced the launch of Into Creative.

This is the second agency Padhi is launching after Taproot in 2009. Taproot was acquired by Dentsu in 2012.

Padhi will be the founder, CCO, and chairperson, while Ghosh is CEO and co-founder. There are four more co-founders, Yogesh Rijhwani (lead creative), Tania Dey (leading strategy and digital), Namrata Gosavi (leading design and digital), and Gargi Vegiraju (business lead). All of them were working at Wieden+Kennedy which 'scaled down its Indian operations' in 2024.

Ghosh, Padhi, Vegiraju and Rijhwani worked together previously at Taproot Dentsu.

Padhi holds the majority stake in the company, while the others are also stakeholders. 

According to a statement from the agency, Into Creative will help brands find a 'big directional idea'.

Padhi said, “I would have easily retired on an island but the calling from adland is loud and clear. This industry has given me everything and it is time for me to give back. Our focus will be on doing brave, fearless, creative brand work. Indian brands and platforms have grown in number, but creativity hasn’t. Oddly enough, brands are being built on creativity. Somewhere the passion of creative agencies to push boundaries has been lost. In a world where anything is now creatively possible, we are here to fill this vacuum.”

Ghosh said, “More experiments happen when independent. And experiments often fail but every now and then give birth to a gloriously unexpected, triumphant discovery. We’re here for that. We see ourselves as multipliers. When one collaborates with high creative integrity, respecting every platform, that's when true magnification of ideas happens."

Into Creative is officially scheduled to launch in Mumbai on 30 March.