For Sudarshan R Chetlur, branding has never been limited to advertising, design or communication. Over more than three decades, his career has moved across visual and performing arts, brand strategy, music, filmmaking, education, television and entrepreneurship, eventually shaping the philosophy behind SCDS Global Branding Private Limited.

Today, Sudarshan describes himself as a brand-building consultant, entrepreneur, painter, professional musician, filmmaker, educator, design and branding coach, motivational speaker and media host. But beneath those diverse roles lies one consistent idea: understanding people is at the heart of building meaningful brands.

His journey began long before SCDS. Through different creative disciplines and professional experiences, he developed what he considers the essential faculties of a brand builder: observation, imagination, empathy, expression and discipline.

His years as visiting faculty at the Sushant School of Art and Architecture, where he taught Design Thinking through Art & Graphics, further strengthened that perspective. His experience in television, including hosting Leaders Todayand Tycoons, gave him another opportunity to engage with business leaders and understand the human stories behind their achievements.

That experience would eventually contribute to The Great Indian Brands Show with Sudarshan R Chetlur, a platform built around Indian entrepreneurship, home-grown businesses and the people behind them.

Today, SCDS is recognised as a compact, high-energy brand-building company: small enough to remain intensely involved, experienced enough to see the larger picture, and passionate enough to treat every brand as though it were its own.

From Advertising Professional to Entrepreneur

SCDS began in 2002 as Sudarshan Chetlur Design Studio. The decision to start the venture was influenced in no small measure by Sudarshan's wife, Rajmee Baruah Sudarshan.

At the time, Sudarshan was working in advertising and handling almost every aspect of the creative process. He was designing, writing copy, developing concepts, strategising, servicing clients, preparing budgets and presenting ideas.

There were also less glamorous moments. He recalls carrying work to the printer, making tea at the office and even sweeping the floor.

But the long hours were not the problem. What stayed with him was a growing fascination with what a brand could become.

Rajmee eventually asked him a simple question: if he was already doing so much, why not start his own agency?

That question became SCDS.

There was another motivation behind the venture. Earlier in his career, Sudarshan had approached established agencies with ambitions around strategy, brand building and creative thinking, only to be told that his aspirations were too large for someone at his level.

The experience stayed with him.

When he eventually built his own organisation, he wanted to create an environment where young professionals would not be discouraged from thinking beyond conventional limits. His intention was to build what he describes as a "passion culture", where young creatives could question, experiment, make mistakes, learn and take responsibility.

"We didn't want to create only graphic designers, copywriters or servicing executives," he says. "We wanted to create complete brand-building professionals."

Putting the Brand Before the Brief

One of the principles that shaped SCDS from its early years was the belief that the brand should come before individual preferences.

According to Sudarshan, the question was never about whose idea was better, whether it belonged to the agency or the client. The focus was on what the brand actually needed to grow.

"Perhaps the biggest gap I saw was fearlessness," he says. "We never tried to impress clients. We tried to be truthful to them."

That approach also influenced the company's creative language.

SCDS deliberately moved away from conventional assumptions around branding, including fixed associations between colours and corporate identities. Instead, the emphasis was on using colour, imagery and language according to the specific personality and requirements of the brand.

To him, good graphic communication is "almost like a wonderful comic book: it should invite you in before asking you to understand it."

For Sudarshan, design is only one part of the equation. Understanding people comes first.

The more closely a business understands its audience, he believes, the more accurately it can communicate with them. This philosophy has also influenced the way SCDS approaches client briefs.

Rather than accepting the brief at face value, the company looks for the details and nuances that may reveal a deeper business or consumer opportunity.

In his words: "Branding is about finding that one needle in the haystack, and then stitching it meaningfully to the heart of your patron." Finding that needle, he adds, is the agency's job.

Five Offerings, One Multidisciplinary Approach

Over more than two decades, the experience of SCDS has been distilled into five specialised offerings.

BrandResume focuses on the strategic foundation of a brand. It covers areas including positioning, audience profiling, segmentation, communication and brand personality, creating what the company describes as a longer-term strategic blueprint.

BrandStrong takes strategy into campaigns, particularly across digital and social platforms.

BrandPitch focuses on presentations and pitch decks used for investment, funding, business acquisition and corporate communication. The offering also extends beyond visual design, helping clients identify the appropriate narrative and voice for their presentation.

BrandFlix is the company's audio-visual storytelling vertical, covering films, reels, documentaries and branded content. It also incorporates music and background-score development.

Then there is BrandTrigger, a coaching platform aimed at entrepreneurs, business owners and design enthusiasts interested in understanding the aesthetics, strategy and thinking behind brand building.

Sudarshan's background in music also adds another dimension to the company's capabilities. His experience composing original music, developing background scores and working with voice allows SCDS to bring strategy, design, writing, visuals and sound together under a single creative approach.

Learning the Business Beyond Creativity

Building a creative company, however, required Sudarshan to develop skills that had little to do with design.

As a first-generation entrepreneur, he admits that he understood creativity far better than cash flow in the early years. Pricing, financial management and business development were areas he had to learn along the way.

The company was so focused on producing strong work that the mechanics of running a business could sometimes take a back seat.

Yet SCDS found one of its most effective growth channels through client relationships.

Sudarshan recalls making only two cold calls when the company started. Much of the subsequent business came through referrals, with one satisfied client introducing the company to another.

That experience reinforced a principle he continues to carry into his entrepreneurial journey: client satisfaction can become a company's most effective marketing engine.

As he puts it: "A happy client doesn't merely give you business. A happy client builds your business."

Relationships, integrity, networking and consistent delivery became central to the company's growth. These lessons later influenced Sudarshan's involvement in Business Icons Worldwide Alliance, or BIWA Leaders, an entrepreneurial networking ecosystem built around relationships, collaboration, learning and business opportunities.

Ranbaxy and the Turning Point

For SCDS, one of the defining milestones came with the Ranbaxy Laboratories account.

Sudarshan identifies the account as a major turning point, both for the company and for himself. The scale and complexity of the assignments pushed the team to operate at a higher level and strengthened its credentials, particularly in healthcare branding.

The work subsequently opened doors to organisations including BD, Eli Lilly, Fresenius Kabi, Wockhardt, Amneal Pharmaceuticals and MedGenome.

Sudarshan is quick to credit the Ranbaxy team that placed its trust in SCDS, particularly those in charge of the Africa Desk and Russia Desk, who entrusted the agency with brands. Seeing the Ranbaxy brands SCDS worked on receive major marketing recognition in Africa was deeply fulfilling, as were milestones such as Q-Sera breaking industry records and winning a Gold Award, and MedGenome's extraordinary growth journey.

For Sudarshan, however, the value of those assignments is not about claiming credit for the success of the brands involved.

He sees the agency's role as contributing strategy, design, communication and creative thinking to larger journeys that ultimately belong to the organisations and teams that built those businesses.

"I would never claim their success as ours," he says. "Their achievements belong to them. But knowing that our thinking, design, strategy and countless hours of work formed a small part of those journeys? That feeling is priceless."

That distinction reflects an important aspect of his broader approach to branding: the agency is there to create value, not to become the centre of the story.

Building the Next Chapter

Today, Sudarshan's entrepreneurial journey extends beyond SCDS.

He sees three interconnected pillars shaping the next phase of his work: SCDS Global Branding Private Limited, The Great Indian Brands Showand BIWA Leaders.

SCDS is increasingly focused on strategic brand-building assignments, including opportunities in international markets. The emphasis remains on working with organisations that view brand building as a long-term business commitment rather than a short-term exercise.

The Great Indian Brands Showreflects Sudarshan's interest in giving greater visibility to Indian entrepreneurs, businesses and home-grown brands.

The thought behind it is simple: VOCAL FOR LOCAL, with a deafening roar. The show's mission is captured in four words: AB JEETO BHARAT KA DIL!

BIWA Leaders represents the networking and ecosystem-building side of his work, bringing business owners and entrepreneurs together through relationships, collaboration, partnerships, learning and business opportunities.

Sudarshan is Co-Founder of Business Icons Worldwide Alliance and its Executive Director for the Gurugram Region. BIWA may still be young, he says, but "every raging fire begins with a spark. And the spark is alive." Its promise: POWER TO YOUR BUSINESS!

The three initiatives represent different expressions of the same underlying philosophy: brands, businesses and entrepreneurs grow when ideas, relationships and opportunities come together.

When Sudarshan Chetlur Design Studio was founded, four words were written beside its name: EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE NOW!"At the time, perhaps it was aspiration," he reflects. "Today, after more than three decades of creating, failing, learning, rebuilding, teaching, performing, mentoring, networking and building brands, those words mean something entirely different."

Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

For aspiring entrepreneurs, Sudarshan's advice is rooted in action rather than certainty.

His message is to take the leap, remain open to learning and avoid allowing someone else's fear to define the limits of one's ambition.

"The best way to learn swimming is to get into the water," he says. "Don't allow someone else's fear to become the boundary of your dream."

He also places considerable emphasis on consistency. Knowledge, in his view, becomes valuable only when it is continuously applied. The entrepreneurial journey inevitably includes periods of success alongside periods of doubt and difficulty, and both play a role in shaping the entrepreneur.

"The victories give you confidence. The difficult days give you character." And the destination, he adds, matters less than the person you become while reaching it.

For someone who has spent more than three decades moving between creative disciplines, entrepreneurship, education, media and brand building, the philosophy remains straightforward: understand people, ask better questions, think deeply and create fearlessly.

He also believes there is room for everyone: "The universe has enough opportunity for everyone. You don't have to diminish someone else's light for yours to shine." For those who need knowledge, guidance or support, his offer is open: ask, and he will help in every way he can. His parting message to new founders: Believe. Begin. Build.

Conclusion

Sudarshan R Chetlur's entrepreneurial journey reflects an unusual intersection of creativity, business and human understanding. From starting Sudarshan Chetlur Design Studio in 2002 to building SCDS Global Branding Private Limited and expanding his work into media, education and business networking, his career has continued to evolve without moving away from its central belief: meaningful brands are built by understanding people.

SCDS today represents more than a creative services company. It carries the accumulated experience of more than three decades across branding, communication, design, storytelling and entrepreneurship.

The next chapter brings together SCDS Global, The Great Indian Brands Showand BIWA Leaders, extending Sudarshan's work from building brands to creating visibility, relationships and opportunities for a wider business ecosystem.

As he says: "Because ultimately, we don't just build brands. We build belief."

After three decades of creating, learning, adapting and building, one belief continues to define the journey:

EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE NOW!

Connect With Sudarshan R Chetlur

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudarshanrchetlur/ 

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@TheGreatIndianBrandsShow