Rajesh Muthyalu
Senior Director - Experience Design
In an exclusive interview with CEO Insights, Rajesh walks us through his journey, experiences, and latest endeavors with Position².
You possess more than two decades of experience in the digital space. How would you define this journey? What inspired you to take up the role of Senior Director of Experience Design at Position2?
Grappling with the pressures of academics, the only relief in this maddening phase was that I found my first love: art. I discovered my potential and switched tracks, which carved my career path. I enrolled in art courses and set myself the goal of becoming a topnotch creative artist. I have completed an Advanced Diploma in Multimedia & Design.
My passion for design and eye for detail makes my craft pixel perfect. For over 20 years, I’ve been offering creative and design direction for leading brands, enhancing their presence in the digital space by creating impeccable digital experiences across platforms. I love the idea of blending creativity and innovative thinking, layering it with the latest technologies. Getting where I am today has been a roller coaster ride. The experience is fulfilling. Today, in my current role as Sr. Director Digital Experience, I’m heading two primary groups, Creative and Web Technology, totaling 60 people.
Under Creative, there are four teams. UX/UI, Graphic/Visual Design, Copy/ Content and VFX teams. The creative group is focused more on digital content creation for B2B and B2C customers. I also work closely with our UX team in designing products.
The journey continues. With time, the playground has changed from web interfaces to smartphones. Today, we interact with AR, VR, and
the Metaverse. The idea is to keep on learning and explore the unexplored.
Define Position2 as an organization and its current position in the industry?
Position2 is a growth marketing agency. We provide innovative digital marketing solutions that accelerate client growth through integrated Content Marketing, Paid Acquisition, and Marketing Technology. We launched in 2006 with the ambitious and successful goal of helping brands grow. And we have grown right alongside them, evolving into a center of growth for our clients. We serve hundreds of clients ranging from VC-funded startups to Fortune 500 multi nationals in technology, financial services, consumer products,life sciences & healthcare, manufacturing, SaaS, and enterprise software.
Our purpose is to collaborate with innovative companies whose mission is to dramatically improve the lives of their customers. Our strength in creative, analytical, and technological aspects of digital marketing integrates with our client’s core capabilities to deliver a platform for exponential growth. Our growth acceleration solutions map the customer’s journey across multiple touch points such as search, social, mobile, media, and email. These integrated campaigns are powered by cutting-edge content creation, digital advertising, web design/ development, marketing automation, and analytics.
Tell us about Arena, your proprietary Growth Marketing Platform.
We leveraged our wide experience in managing growth marketing for clients and created our own platform to enable efficiency and provide our clients a better experience. Arena enables growth by incorporating best practices, frameworks and processes across all areas of digital marketing. It has in built modules for collaboration and a powerful data and analytics infrastructure that leverages AI/ML to help optimize for ROI.
Using our unique Arena platform, our clients know exactly where we are in our development process, along with crucial collaboration and decision points. Our Web, UX, SEO, Paid Acquisition, Marketing Automation, Creative, and Analytics teams collaborate with our client’s marketing and technology team transparently.
What has been the success mantra that constantly helps you arrive at positive outcomes?
Be authentic. Feel the end-user’s pain points. Keep aside preferences and biases. Gain real emotion for the context and examine how users experience a product or a service. With experience, research, and past learning, we can empathize with our target audiences. This approach always helps us get things right the first time. In digital marketing, timing is crucial, and one can lose customers if they are not engaged in the first attempt.
Do not jump to and blindly apply the latest design trends from the market. Each brand and its goals are different. Clients often come wanting us to 'create something like that brand'. Yes, this makes our job easier and saves costs by simply
Define Position2 as an organization and its current position in the industry?
Position2 is a growth marketing agency. We provide innovative digital marketing solutions that accelerate client growth through integrated Content Marketing, Paid Acquisition, and Marketing Technology. We launched in 2006 with the ambitious and successful goal of helping brands grow. And we have grown right alongside them, evolving into a center of growth for our clients. We serve hundreds of clients ranging from VC-funded startups to Fortune 500 multi nationals in technology, financial services, consumer products,life sciences & healthcare, manufacturing, SaaS, and enterprise software.
Our purpose is to collaborate with innovative companies whose mission is to dramatically improve the lives of their customers. Our strength in creative, analytical, and technological aspects of digital marketing integrates with our client’s core capabilities to deliver a platform for exponential growth. Our growth acceleration solutions map the customer’s journey across multiple touch points such as search, social, mobile, media, and email. These integrated campaigns are powered by cutting-edge content creation, digital advertising, web design/ development, marketing automation, and analytics.
Tell us about Arena, your proprietary Growth Marketing Platform.
We leveraged our wide experience in managing growth marketing for clients and created our own platform to enable efficiency and provide our clients a better experience. Arena enables growth by incorporating best practices, frameworks and processes across all areas of digital marketing. It has in built modules for collaboration and a powerful data and analytics infrastructure that leverages AI/ML to help optimize for ROI.
Using our unique Arena platform, our clients know exactly where we are in our development process, along with crucial collaboration and decision points. Our Web, UX, SEO, Paid Acquisition, Marketing Automation, Creative, and Analytics teams collaborate with our client’s marketing and technology team transparently.
What has been the success mantra that constantly helps you arrive at positive outcomes?
Be authentic. Feel the end-user’s pain points. Keep aside preferences and biases. Gain real emotion for the context and examine how users experience a product or a service. With experience, research, and past learning, we can empathize with our target audiences. This approach always helps us get things right the first time. In digital marketing, timing is crucial, and one can lose customers if they are not engaged in the first attempt.
Do not jump to and blindly apply the latest design trends from the market. Each brand and its goals are different. Clients often come wanting us to 'create something like that brand'. Yes, this makes our job easier and saves costs by simply
copying some one else’s ideas, but it does n’t work and is best avoidable. For positive outcomes, always be original and build it on your own.
Another important factor of success is the three P's: Passion, Patience, and People. In my experience, I have always seen great success in having passionate people in the team who are aligned with our goals and who come with great skills and the right techniques. It requires great patience to deal with the team and clients simultaneously. I also believe in giving freedom to young creative people as they come up with original ideas.Do not kill originality with seniority. Most of the time, ideas that come organically will create wonders.
Being the Senior Director, how do you plan to apply your exceptional under standing of this domain to position and take the company to the next level?
We at Position2 believe in scaling digital marketing for super-ambitious bands. It is always fun and challenging to work with innovators. As we are a growth marketing agency, we always try to develop new creative ways to help our clients engage with their customers. Also, the digital marketing landscape is forever evolving with new technologies my team and I need to be constantly on a learning curve to compete in the market. Apart from being creative, proactively adapting to the right technology at the right time always puts us on the next level in the competition.
What advice would you give to the upcoming leaders in the same industry?
I always believe in being yourself and not attempting what others are achieving. Everything comes with your life lessons, and each individual has their own. If you always follow directions, then you are restricting your creativity. Sometimes going against the rules helps you achieve something greater. Every time your creative campaign or a website gets launched, look more for criticism than compliments. Criticism always ignites your inner spark and forces you to do better.
Rajesh Muthyalu, Senior Director, Experience Design
Rajesh is a creative, self-taught, award-winning designer with over 20+ years of experience in the digital space, having worked with leading brands and creative agencies. He started his career in 2001 as a Junior Creative Artist in Mumbai and has worked on multiple creative projects with FCBUlka, JWT, Lintas, Hindustan Petroleum, EROS, Mahindra & Mahindra, and The Ad Club Bombay.
•Favorite cuisine: Indian
•Favorite Travel Destination: Masai Mara He loves unique wildlife experiences and exploring the people and culture living next to the wilderness.
•Hobbies:Photography & riding motorcycles
•Favorite book:Good to Great by Jim Collins
•Awards & Recognition:IDA 2017, Silver The International Design Awards, Multimedia-Interface Design GOLD at Big Bang, Awards 2019 for Creative Excellence Global B2B, Product Launch Campaign Bronze at 10th India Digital Awards, 2020
Another important factor of success is the three P's: Passion, Patience, and People. In my experience, I have always seen great success in having passionate people in the team who are aligned with our goals and who come with great skills and the right techniques. It requires great patience to deal with the team and clients simultaneously. I also believe in giving freedom to young creative people as they come up with original ideas.Do not kill originality with seniority. Most of the time, ideas that come organically will create wonders.
Being the Senior Director, how do you plan to apply your exceptional under standing of this domain to position and take the company to the next level?
We at Position2 believe in scaling digital marketing for super-ambitious bands. It is always fun and challenging to work with innovators. As we are a growth marketing agency, we always try to develop new creative ways to help our clients engage with their customers. Also, the digital marketing landscape is forever evolving with new technologies my team and I need to be constantly on a learning curve to compete in the market. Apart from being creative, proactively adapting to the right technology at the right time always puts us on the next level in the competition.
What advice would you give to the upcoming leaders in the same industry?
I always believe in being yourself and not attempting what others are achieving. Everything comes with your life lessons, and each individual has their own. If you always follow directions, then you are restricting your creativity. Sometimes going against the rules helps you achieve something greater. Every time your creative campaign or a website gets launched, look more for criticism than compliments. Criticism always ignites your inner spark and forces you to do better.
Rajesh Muthyalu, Senior Director, Experience Design
Rajesh is a creative, self-taught, award-winning designer with over 20+ years of experience in the digital space, having worked with leading brands and creative agencies. He started his career in 2001 as a Junior Creative Artist in Mumbai and has worked on multiple creative projects with FCBUlka, JWT, Lintas, Hindustan Petroleum, EROS, Mahindra & Mahindra, and The Ad Club Bombay.
•Favorite cuisine: Indian
•Favorite Travel Destination: Masai Mara He loves unique wildlife experiences and exploring the people and culture living next to the wilderness.
•Hobbies:Photography & riding motorcycles
•Favorite book:Good to Great by Jim Collins
•Awards & Recognition:IDA 2017, Silver The International Design Awards, Multimedia-Interface Design GOLD at Big Bang, Awards 2019 for Creative Excellence Global B2B, Product Launch Campaign Bronze at 10th India Digital Awards, 2020