Campaign’s Creative Faces to Watch 2022 – Chirag Khushalani, Creative Strategist, AKQA
Age: 25
Vylan Dalmaida, Strategy Lead, AKQA: Chirag is one of the faces to watch for the next decade. An account person turned strategist – his ability to galvanise people around him, coupled with his strategic resourcefulness makes one wonder if he’s really under the age of 30. This has been proven in his contributions in winning new business and being praised by senior clients. He channels his passion for problem solving into the insights he uncovers and the strategies he creates. For me, Chirag is an industry leader in the making.
Career highlights
I have an instinctive understanding of people, situations, and opportunities. This led to winning competitions like BBH’s Beautiful Minds, Young Lynx Academy and new business for Garnier, Aramco and ADNIC with teams in Europe/MENA. Beyond my role, I host ‘Acquainted’, an internal podcast promoting agency culture and propose/implement initiatives for pitches and awards.
I’m the co-founder of ‘Aliens in Advertising’ – a community advocating for international talent, and my school’s alumni board chair. My past client relationship skills from Chicago and cultural knowledge of being Dubai-born resulted in instinctively creating a new strategic offering for our agency’s go-to-market pitches.
Guiding principles
“Yes And…” is a principle I learned during Improv, where no matter what the situation throws at you, one must embrace it and build upon it. This mindset is resulting in a greater degree of ideas being shared, trust being gained, and ultimately the work being better.
Side hustle
After testing false-positive, I started www.MyTrustedCircle.org to help COVID-19 patients reduce fears of social stigma. The platform was beta-tested by clinics in the US and inspired a research study at GW University. I also founded ‘CareBox UAE’ to help people stay mentally stimulated and uplifted while recovering from COVID-19 and surgeries.
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