Nihal Mehta
Co-Founder & CEO
With over 10 years experience in youth marketing, Nihal Mehta, co-founder and CEO of ipsh!, is a noted expert in the emerging Gen X / Gen Y adoption of wireless technologies for media properties and consumer brands. His deep experience in developing tools and services for this niche demographic formed the basis for youth and college marketing technology, which had included chat-room features, blogs, lifestyle-centric email programs, and street marketing tools beginning in 1998. As co-founder of UrbanGroove Networks, Inc., in 1998, Mehta helped the company to grow into one of the largest network of youth-oriented, independent city guides online. Constantly seeking new technologies and innovations to reach out to young audiences, Mehta spun out a new company from UGN in 2001 to pursue what he felt was an emerging sector: youth interaction through SMS (short messages). It was then that Mehta discovered that previous media competitors had the potential to become clients and there was enormous return for a business specializing in pervasive mobile media. This venture evolved into ?ipsh!? (which stands for ?instant power single-handed?) and was originally created as a service that allowed event managers to selectively summon individuals based upon their preferences, location, and area code. This service quickly achieved cult-status, and was widely recognized as an effective marketing tool to mobilize youths and alert them to events that occurred after the official closing of traditional establishments such as concert halls, bars, and nightclubs. Today, ipsh! maintains a strong standing as the U.S. leader in mobile marketing with more than 500 total campaigns implemented across over 150 unique clients since inception in June of 2001. Ranging in brands from Madonna to Budweiser, the firm has transformed lifestyle marketing through offline/online youth events into a multi-million dollar, full-service mobile marketing agency. Mehta grew the company from his bedroom to over 30 employees today, and sold the cutting edge mobile marketing agency to Omnicom Group, Inc. in October 2005. Nihal remains today the CEO of ipsh! and one of the youngest CEOs within Omnicom Group, Inc. Sought for his expert insight into the developing interaction between the youth culture and marketers, Mehta's work has earned him distinction as one of AdAge's Top Twenty Marketers in their 20s as well as profiles in The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Financial Times, and Tech-TV, among others. Mehta frequently speaks at numerous marketing and advertising conferences, such as Ad-Tech, CTIA, 3GSM (Barcelona), Billboard?s MECCA, the Mobile Marketing Association, Kellogg?s School of Business and Future-M at UC Berkeley. In April 2006, Mehta was awarded the National Association of Minority Media Executives' (NAMME) Catalyst Award for New Media, which recognizes and encourages the contributions of individuals whose actions and leadership have advanced diversity in the media industry. Aside from his work with some of the world's most recognized brands that include such names as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, Disney, Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, Kelloggs, Elizabeth Arden, Bertelsmann, EMI, and HBO; Nihal - 29 years old - still keeps his finger on entertainment's pulse through his hobby as a DJ, where can be found spinning events across the U.S. in cities such as San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., and Miami. A graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, Mehta obtained an honors BA in Philosophy of Science and a BS in Computer Science and Engineering.
