Karthik Srinivasan (/kɑːrθɪksriːnɪvɑːsən/) is an Indian communications strategy consultant and music critic. He is the founder of the website ItwoFS, which tracks plagiarism in Indian film music, and Milliblog, where he reviews music albums.
Career
In 2001, Karthik founded ItwoFS (pronounced /aɪtuːɛfɛs/eye-too-ef-es, derived from the initialism IIFS which stands for "Inspirations in Indian Film Songs"), a website that tracks plagiarism in Indian film music.[1][2] In 2005, he founded the music review website Milliblog, where he reviews music albums within 100 words.[3][4] Despite beginning his career in this field, Karthik later revealed he has no formal training in music or music reviewing.[5] In 2008, he created his first "work-related blog", Beast of Traal, that is about Indian corporates and brands.[6] In 2009, Karthik was appointed as the head of digital strategy at Edelman India.[7] In November 2013, he became the national lead of Ogilvy & Mather in India. He previously served as AVP of Corporate Communications at Flipkart.[8][9] Karthik's LinkedIn profile was, between 2015 and 2017, the most viewed under "marketing and advertisement/communication".[10] Karthik left Ogilvy & Mather in March 2018.[11][12] In 2019, Karthik authored a book on self-branding, titled Be Social: Building Brand You Online.[13]
Accolades
In 2015, Karthik won two awards: the Best Media Innovation- Social Media award at Emvie 2015, and Interactive- Creative Use of Data award (bronze) at the DMA Asia Echo Awards.[14]
Personal life
Karthik's native language is Tamil.[15] He speaks English, Hindi and Tamil fluently, and has limited understanding of Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.[16] Karthik studied in college in Salem, Tamil Nadu.[17] He has resided in Bangalore, Karnataka for several years, and has two children.[18] Karthik has stated that during his formative years he suffered from stammering, and medical treatments proved futile. Realising this was a mental issue rather than a physical one, he decided to pursue a career in corporate communication to overcome his issues.[19]