Preeti Vyas Giannetti has sure come a long way.

By Chhaya

She's certainly a designing woman: give her an inch of a logo--and she'll take the account. But then, the 40-year-old Preeti Vyas Giannetti (a.k.a. PVG) has worked hard to earn her spurs as a designer-CEO. As the head of Vyas Giannetti Creative (VGC)--a full-solution hotshot ad-shop she activated in March, 1996--she is darn proud of the designing ways that have taken its billings to Rs 7 crore in just a year. "As a creative person, my head may be in the clouds. But, as a businesswoman, my feet are firmly on the ground," she says proudly.

Sample what happens when an air-brush meets a calculator. Kumar Mangalam Birla, the 30-year-old chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, wanted a few changes in the group's old logo. But PVG quickly went ahead and drew a brand-new one: the rising sun. And he was so impressed with the idea--Aditya in Sanskrit means Sun--that Birla promptly asked PVG to take over the communications of the Rs 15,000-crore group. That's what they call a signature takeover.

At Rs 10.50 crore, PVG's projections for 1997-98 are ambitious. Especially since growth for the start-up has another perspective. Although VGC came into being in 1984--to handle the odd freelance job--work really started only in March, 1996, in a 200-square-foot office with one PC and two more people. But these tangibles have swollen to 7 PCs and 15 people today. One reason for PVG's success: VGC's ability to take up any design job--unlike the typical fussy ad agency--and PVG's own transition from a creative to an agency head.

This effortless morph is particularly amazing since PVG has always been a creative person--the last job she had was a stint between 1986 and 1996 as the creative director of Trikaya Grey. But those 10 Trikaya years did expose her to a role model: the late Ravi Gupta, who managed Trikaya Grey into one of the top ad-shops in the country. One of Gupta's assets was his ability to woo, and build long-term relationships with, clients on the basis of their strategy.

Over the years, PVG obviously absorbed those skills osmotically. "My strength lies in approaching creativity from a strategic and synergistic angle," she postulates. For instance, when VGC was asked in October, 1996, to design window displays for Beautiful Boulevard--an outlet in Mumbai that retails premium brands like Piaget, Tiffany's, and Givenchy--PVG handled the assignment so skillfully that she now caters to all its advertising and design needs. Her touch: transparent Beautiful Boulevard shopping bags, which not only look unique but also act as a mobile ad for its super-premium products.

Watching Gupta at work also taught PVG the importance of attending to all the areas of an agency's business: administration, accounting, budgeting, and client servicing. Laughs PVG: "I had to go through a fairly painful change in time-management. Nearly 40 per cent of my time is spent on non-creative work." Still, she refuses to doff her designer epaulets. And that has stood VGC in good stead as PVG personally interacts with clients and, often, is persuasive in explaining the logic of the creative. Raves Kumar Mangalam Birla: "Her's is an agency with a difference."

One obvious stripe of a different colour: unlike other design vendors, vgc insists on being a one-stop shop for all a corporate's needs. Which means that while most advertising agencies sub-contract some, or most, of their work, vgc offers a menu of in-house capabilities. This is possible, according to Mohammed Khan, 55, the acerbic chairman of Enterprise Nexus, who worked with her for five years, because "she has not only worked with all the forms of media, but is familiar with the different aspects of design."

One happy fall-out of being all things to all people has been that VGC's portfolio has become colourfully diverse. The different strokes: designing a coffee-table book on dhurries for furnishings-king Shyam Ahuja; visualising three music videos for Plus Music; creating a multimedia ad campaign for Sony TV's The Great Performers Of India; executing the hoardings and invitation cards for the Lata Mangeshkar Concert in March, 1997; and promoting the National Centre of Performing Art's golden jubilee series, Ardhakatha--all in a year.

Says Amit Khanna, 40, the CEO of Plus Music: "In her working style, she can sometimes be too rigid, and you have to really argue it out with her." But then, PVG always did have non-conformist tendencies. Her initial years in the profession are pointed proof. After a four-year stint at an ad agency, Contract--Khan was the one who hired the designer-fresher--she travelled through Africa and North America for a year after meeting her hubby-to-be, who was doing a masters in world music.

All through her 12-month journey, PVG performed a medley of odd jobs: selling clothes and jewellery at the Hay Market in Boston (US), giving lessons in art to school children, teaching English to French women etc.. "The risk I took enriched me in a hermetic way since most creative people become insular to the outside world," says PVG.

Finally, a travel-weary PVG beached in Mumbai, and started experimenting by freelancing. For nine months in 1984-85, she designed the Taj magazine for the Rs 613.33-crore Indian Hotels, and promoted feature films like Ketan Mehta's Holi and Govind Nihalani's Aaghat. Her big break came in 1985 when she designed the film magazine, Cine Blitz. After that, there was no looking back, and the next year, she won the Communications Arts Guild's (CAG) Designer Of The Year award. Quite typically, that award had to be instituted just to honour PVG's achievements. In the next decade followed 50 more citations.

Perhaps PVG's dearest testimonial is VGC's instant success. Even though she stands vindicated after years of hard work--and experimentation with design styles--PVG, finally, feels fulfilled. "As a child, I lacked self-esteem, was considered a disappointment by my family, and was refused admission at the J.J. School Of Arts in Mumbai," she says. But in true Vyas fashion, she persevered. Joined the National Institute of Design at Ahmedabad. Focused on her strengths. And went on to design a brilliant career in a competitive, cut-throat business. That's vintage PVG: give her an inch--and she'll become the ruler.