Santosh Gupta, Founder of Pinnacle celebrity management company shares his journey to success

Founder of Pinnacle celebrity management company, Santosh Gupta, who is also a producer as well as the founder of an advertising agency, says that the journey to success has been one filled with happiness. Santosh started off with an event management company in UP, and today has the top stars of the TV industry as his clients.

“Before coming to Mumbai, I was already running an event management company of UP which was the biggest event management company in UP in 2010, that had organised Lucknow Mahotsav, Illahabad Mahotsav, Agra Taj Mahotsav. We were the first celebrity management company of Mumbai. Other companies such as Matrix and Exceed came in 2012, but we came in 2011. From 2011 to 2018, we also did celebrity management. Then Sarabjit Anand asked me to co-produce a show on MTV called Date To Remember which he wanted. Then we created a YouTube channel and put out around 15 songs on it which we had shot in Thailand, Indonesia and Dubai. After  the lockdown, along with Abhigyan Jha and Mrinal Jha, we produced Qubool Hai 2.0 and with Pinaka Studios, we created Raktanchal 2.0 for MX Player,” he says.

Talking about his relationships with actors in the TV industry, Santosh says only hard work matters. “To maintain relationships, you have to work with dedication for the actors who are on board. We have shot more than 20 short films and 50 songs. For the past 6-7 years, we have been associated with Mouni Roy, Rashmi Desai, Karishma Tanna, Karanvir Bohra, Gurmeet Chaudhary, Debina Bonnerjee, Ravie Dubey, Sargun Mehta, Rithvik Dhanjani, Asha Negi, Surbhi Jyoti. In 2018, I shifted towards production and during the lockdown, through Instagram, celebrities started locking their own deals so I thought to focus more on production,” he says.

He adds, “In today’s times, Arjun Bijlani, Sharad Malhotra, Yuvika Chaudhary, Shrenu Parikh, Surbhi Chandna, Mansi Srivastava, Nyrraa M Banerjee, Gaurav Bajaj, Balraj Syal, Ankita Lokhande, Ankit Tiwari and his wife and Vicky Jain, we were instrumental in getting him  Smart Jodi Number 1. Arjun Bijlani has done Ravivaar With Star Parivaar, MTV Splitsvilla and a web series named Roohaniyat with us. We work really hard with them and do brand association.  We have done events with Shan, Honey Singh, Guru Randhawa, Shreya Ghoshal. We also did Mithoon's first live concert. We have created a new company called Influencer World where we are giving chance to influencers to work with actors.”

Ask him what budding entrepreneurs in this field should focus on, and he says, “Whatever you want to do, stay focused and keep improving yourself every day. Keep a disciplined life and focus on maintaining relationships and make sure that you maintain your connections on social media and stay active. Rest, the way you give your auditions also matters a lot.”

Meanwhile, Santosh also adds that family support is a must. “My wife, Ruchi and my kids Devansh and Divyanshi have always supported me. It’s their hard work and support which has helped me. When I shifted to Mumbai, Ruchi took the responsibility of raising the kids. She managed everything single-handedly and never complained,” he says.