On Friday night, Siddharth Rao, a co-founder and former CEO of Webchutney, passed suddenly. According to a formal statement made public by Punt Partners, “He suffered a fatal cardiac arrest on the 21st of April at his home in Karjat.” Rao leaves behind his wife and parents.

A brief about Siddharth Rao, the co-founder of WebChutney, passes away

We’re still adjusting to Sidharth Rao’s unexpected and sad passing, just like all of you, stated Dentsu WebChutney in a post regarding the firing of Rao on LinkedIn. We all who worked at Webchutney were aware of him as more than just our founder or our supreme boss. He was exactly who he wanted to be for us—”Daddy @ Webchutney.” At award ceremonies, he was the person with the loudest cheers every time. 

The person who made sure we partied hard and worked hard. The person who constantly expressed greater enthusiasm for our ideas than we did. God only knows how and why, but he was the one who consistently had more faith in us than we had in ourselves. The person who was never afraid to casually inspire self-assurance by stating, “Tu karlega/karlegi.” We all had no idea that the guy would depart from us so abruptly. Sid, RIP. The first fauji.

Siddharth established WebChutney, India’s first and leading digital agency, about two decades ago, in 1999. Rao headed WebChutney for more than 20 years before Dentsu later purchased the company in 2013. Rao was selected to lead Dentsu McGarrybowen as its worldwide CEO in July 2021.

The Unfiltered History Tour for Vice Media received accolades from Rao’s agency at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2022.

However, he left his position as group CEO of the Japanese media network in 2022 and co-founded Punt Partners with seasoned businessperson Madhu Sudhan in the marketing software industry.

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