Krishan Premnarayen

Krishan Premnarayen was the youngest President of AAAI when he took charge as President in 1988 at the age of 36 years. Krishan devoted substantial time and energy towards reviving the relevance of the Association to become a source of support for member agencies and a strong Industry Body to interact with other industry and government bodies. It was during his tenure that it started getting due recognition from the Government. Due to his efforts, I&B Ministry, Doordarshan, AIR etc. started inviting AAAI to work with them on several issues like Accreditation, Credit etc. Under his Presidency, AAAI introduced the concept of Creative Seminars and Workshops. The first full-day event titled ‘The Creative Fishbowl’ was held at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai which had a distinguished panel of thought leaders viz.  Subhas Ghosal, Alyque Padamsee, Ravi Gupta etc. 
 
Long after his tenure as President of AAAI, Krishan Premnarayen continued to chair the key AAAI-Government Relationship Committee on vital issues like Tax on advertising, Service Tax, Doordarshan participation in TV viewership measurement etc. Besides his contribution to the industry at AAAI, Krishan Premnarayen also served as Chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) and Chairman of the National Readership Survey Council (NRSC). In the formative years of the NRSC he played a stellar role in getting all institutions to participate in a pathbreaking initiative for the industry.
 
It was during his tenure that the foundation was laid to make AAAI the legitimately recognized body for the advertising industry across constituencies. He must also be given due credit for vastly strengthening AAAI’s relationships with the media industry – including while he was at the helm of ABC and NRSC.