The Money Makers
With the onset of the pandemic, Digital advertising has been on a mission to overshadow Televison AdEx in India, after having surpassed Print, Radio and other mediums. We saw how Google, and Facebook overtook top Indian media firms in ad revenue in FY21. In fact, their last earnings report for FY22 showed how the two players still dominate the Digital advertising space in the country, even as other Digital media companies have begun to slowly chip their way into that share. However, the year 2022 was one that first brought optimism for Digital media with forecasts on how it is expected to grow by 30% as opposed to TV’s 14%, and then in the second part spread gloom with talks of a global slowdown, coupled with layoffs and impending recession, which were expected to shake the advertising industry and most directly the tech majors. On the other hand, the Television industry has been on a war footing to not lose its position as the biggest medium as far as AdEx is concerned. Properties like the Indian Premier League, Bigg Boss, and KBC were leading the ad revenue charts. While subscription on TV has played a substantial role and is slowly catching on as far as OTT is concerned, media companies are still heavily dependent on the ad route to add to their cash piles. Here we profile the key leaders from such companies who have contributed to the success of these platforms, the ones that have driven growth through transformative sale of advertisements in various forms. Presenting to you IMPACT's Money Makers Special Google India Estimated Ad Revenue: Rs 24,926.5 cr for FY22 Google supports a total of 19 Indian languages Roma Datta Chobey joined Google in 2015 as the Head of Industry, Classifieds, and Gaming. She was later elevated as Group Head for Travel, BFSI, Classifieds, Gaming, Telco, and Payments. Her portfolio expanded when she was appointed as Director, Entertainment and Media. She was previously associated with HDFC bank and IDBI Bank. After spending ten years in the banking sector, Chobey stepped into a strategy role, and thereafter she joined the tech industry. Shalini joined Google in 2021, and is Director and Country Head for Google Customer Solutions where she is building the digital ecosystem for India. Prior to her current role, she was the Category Director with Amazon India and CEO for Lehar Foods Business, PepsiCo. There she turned around the business through business model transformation. Shalini is a leader with functional expertise in Sales, Finance, Supply Chain, and Human resources. Priya Choudhary joined Google in 2019 as Head of YouTube and Brand Solutions. She was elevated as Director of Business Solutions in 2021. Prior to joining Google, she worked as a key leader with Mediacom. An MBA in marketing communications from MICA, Choudhary has worked with Ogilvy & Mather, Madison World, and Mindshare in the past. She also had stints with Unilever and Kraft Heinz, prior to joining Mediacom. Satya Raghavan joined Google in 2014, and was Director of Content Partnership, Youtube. He was elevated as Director of Marketing Partners in 2022. Raghavan is responsible for partnerships with creative and media agencies to drive digital transformation for advertisers. Before joining Google, Raghavan served in senior positions as the Head of Consumer Marketing at MSN India, Vice President of Marketing at Star India, and Vice-President at Helion Ventures. Bhaskar Ramesh joined Google in 2012, and was elevated as Head of YouTube and Brand Advertising in 2017. In this current role as Director of Omnichannel Businesses (Technology, Retail, Auto, CPG, Finance and CoE Digitization), he leads Google India’s Omni channel businesses, driving the digitization of large traditional sectors making Google gateway of Omni channel commerce in India. Tanveer S. Uberoi joined Google India in 2015 as Head, Agency Partnerships & Sales, Google Customer Solutions. He was elevated as a Director in 2021, and is currently responsible for the partner ecosystem in India, which includes cross-channel media, and independent digital media agencies. Prior to joining Google India, he was working as Vice President and National Sales Head, Branded Content, for Times Network. Meta Estimated Ad Revenue: Rs 16,189 cr for FY22 Arun Srinivas joined Meta in 2020, and today he leads the strategy and delivery of its India marketing solutions focused on advertisers and agencies. Prior to this, he was with cab aggregator Ola, where he was the Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Ola Mobility. Srinivas comes with 24 years of experience in senior sales and marketing roles at companies such as Ola, Unilever, and Reebok. He also did a stint at investment firm WestBridge Capital Partners, where he led the consumer vertical. Srinivas started his career with Reebok and then moved to Unilever where he spent more than 15 years across food, beverages, skin care, and personal care categories. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. There are nearly 239.65 million Facebook users in India alone, making it the leading country in terms of Facebook audience size Source: Statista Recently, Whatsapp collaborated with Jio Mart to enable conversational e-commerce in India There were 2,533,35,900 Instagram users in India in January 2022, which accounted for 17.7% of its entire population: NapoleanCat Archana Vohra leads Meta's mandate of enabling, growing, and scaling entrepreneurs and young digital businesses in India. Passionate about unleashing the potential of small businesses, she is committed to empowering them at scale to drive socio-economic growth. Archana joined Meta in January 2019 from Amazon, where she worked as Director, Seller Enablement. Archana has nearly two-and-a-half decades of experience in creating, building, and monetizing web and mobile products across leadership roles at Meta, Amazon, NDTV Convergence and Times Internet Limited. She is also passionate about diversity initiatives and animal rights, and spends her time outside of Meta dedicated to these. Disney Star Estimated Ad Revenue: Rs 12000+ CR Consolidated for FY22 Ajit Varghese recently joined Disney Star as Head of Network Advertising Sales. In this role, he is responsible for overall advertising revenues of Disney Star’s Television and Digital businesses and for driving growth through transformative sales and channel strategies, creating alliances and business development. He is also responsible for developing the long-term vision and defining the strategic direction of the sales organization. Prior to this, Ajit was with ShareChat and Moj as Chief Commercial Officer. He was responsible for driving monetization, leading marketing efforts and content partnerships. Previously he has been associated in key leadership roles with WPP Media Disney Star has won the rights to broadcast all ICC events for the Indian markets from 2024-2027 Disney Star retained IPL TV rights for 23,575 cr Star Plus’ Anupamaa is the top-rated daily soap on Indian television Amrutha Nair was elevated as Head of Entertainment, Ad sales and Strategy, Disney Star, in 2022. Nair started her career with Asianet Communications, following which she joined TV Today Network to handle their ad sales for the Southern markets. She also had a two-year stint with Discovery Networks Asia Pacific as Director - Ad Sales from 2014-16. She played a key role in the growth of the regional portfolio of Disney Star by building synergies between the business functions and the revenue function. Bandyopadhyay joined Star India (Star TV) in 2018 as Executive Director, and was recently elevated to the position of Head of Sports Sales. He has been associated with the network for over three years. Prior to this, he was with HT Media for over four years, where he joined as the National Head of Media Marketing, and later received a promotion to the post of Chief Operating Officer. His illustrious career also boasts his association with HUL for over 10 years. Disney+Hotstar Estimated Ad Revenue: Rs 1,684.31 cr for FY22 Shalini Poddar joined Disney+Hotstar in 2021, and is responsible for the ad sales revenue and strategy for Disney+ Hotstar. She leads a team of 140+ people across all aspects of the ad business, Business Planning; Sales; Sales Strategy, including pricing and formats; Revenue Management; Operations; Data Partnerships; Programmatic; Brand Lab; Measurement/ROI, and Customer Marketing. In her previous role at Google, she was Head of Business Development, Google Play Apps — India, South East Asia, and Australia. She had an eight-year stint at Google, having joined the company in July 2013 as Industry Manager — Telecom, Gaming, and Payments. Shalini has 17 years of experience across Consulting, Strategy, Business Development, Sales, Partnerships, and Marketing. ZEEL (ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Limited) Estimated Ad Revenue: Rs 4,396.5 cr for FY22 Revenue: Rs 8,189.3 cr Consolidated for FY22 (Source: BSE) Ashish Sehgal has been associated with ZEE Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. since January 2006. As the Chief Growth Officer – Advertisement Revenue, he plays a strategic role of synergizing the network assets of the media and entertainment powerhouse, to generate revenue, and enhance the value of the organization. Sehgal conceptualized and implemented a unified revenue generating vertical in ZEE, with a focus on customer, and imbibed a platform agnostic approach leading to enhanced revenue generation opportunity for every entertainment or information platform of the Company. He was previously associated with Star India Pvt. Ltd. at a National Head Level, before managing the overall network’s sales. Prior to that, Ashish worked at Buena Vista TV. He started his career with Times Group in 1994, where he contributed to the launch of the country’s first FM channel. "I have been associated with ZEE since January 2006. It has been a gratifying journey. One of my key achievements here was enhancing our services further with the launch of ZEE Brand Works recently. Through this, we are working with brands to help achieve their objectives across the marketing funnel by providing integrated solutions across our TV, Digital, Social and Experiential platforms resulting in enhanced brand connections, higher engagement, and improved marketing outcomes. Rapid digitisation across the sector has brought with it both opportunities as well as challenges. While this has created a massive opportunity for the industry to grow and explore newer revenue generation streams, the challenge for businesses is to successfully tie all the mediums together to create a seamless experience, and offer unique solutions to not just engage the viewer, but also to attract the advertiser.” ZEE5 Revenue: Rs 549.6 cr for FY22 The number 5 in the name Zee5 stands for the five continents that it is present in Gaurav Kanwal brings to the table his rich experience in media and information technology sector across the Asia-Pacific and South Asian markets. In his current role, Gaurav is responsible for driving revenue from ZEE’s Digital offerings, working across advertisers and agency partners. Prior to ZEE, Gaurav was EVP – Ad Sales of Disney+Hotstar, where he set up new businesses, adding incremental revenue and ad products to the platform’s offering to clients. Gaurav has spent over a decade in the tech industry with industry leaders like Adobe, and Symantec, where he set up the SMB and consumer business respectively in the South Asian region. Spotify Arjun Ravi Kolady joined Spotify India in 2019. Prior to this he was associated with Facebook, Google, and Give. At Facebook he was driving the largest vertical in India. He evangelized mobile solutions and drove incremental advertising revenue growth from a select set of partners in the online space across commerce, offline retail, airlines, OTAs, Hotels, and hyperlocal players. Viacom18 Advertisement Sales, Subscription, and PROGRAMME Syndication revenue: Rs 3,908.5 cr for FY22 Revenue: Rs 4,145.4 cr for FY22 Mahesh Shetty joined Viacom18 in April 2019, and leads the media & entertainment network’s revenue function. An industry veteran, Mahesh has over 23 years of experience in Media and FMCG sectors, managing varied P&L and functional leadership roles. In his 12.5 years of tenure at Radio Mirchi, he was one of the chief architects of driving Mirchi’s growth in the cluttered private FM space, and building Mirchi as a dominant market leader. Mahesh joined Mirchi as VP and Cluster Head of Tamil Nadu when it was a 7-station network in India and in his decade plus stint he donned multiple roles finally exiting as the Chief Operating officer running a 76-station network. He also served as the Chief Strategy Officer where he is credited with starting Mirchi’s international business, leading Mirchi’s Phase 3 expansion and scaling up the IP properties business with large format multi lingual properties such as Mirchi Music Awards. Prior to joining Radio Mirchi he had a long stint of over 10 years with PepsiCo International. "We have created a unique structure where we leverage the power of the network as well as the individual channel, focusing on delivering brand value and maximising revenue. We have created a data analytics-led approach to a lot of our decision making on core sales that has helped drive growth. We have also invested heavily in brand solutions of teams within our sales structure that has helped us provide innovative solutions to brands and scale up our revenue from Impact properties. While Broadcast has been rock solid, Voot sales have seen exponential growth in the last couple of years. In the last financial year both on broadcast as well on OTT, V18 was one of the fastest growing companies in the space we operate in.” Key individuals Bikash Kundu, Revenue Head, Regional, Viacom18 Voot In her current role Chanpreet Arora drives the AVOD business – VOOT and is responsible for leading AVOD led partnerships that are key to VOOT’s overall growth. Over the last 20 years she has been a core leader in the launch and scaling of leading international and local media brands in India including VICE Media, The New York Times, Formula One, Times Internet, Discovery Channel and Formula One. Samsung Ads Sahmey joined Samsung Ads in 2020 as Senior Director. His remit is to set up the Samsung Ads business in India & South East Asia by pioneering the arena of Connected TV. Prior to Samsung, Prabh pioneered Programmatic Advertising at Google, Search Advertising at GroupM, and E-education with Tata Interactive Systems. Over the years, Prabhvir has been identified as a domain expert for all things online, and is a go-getter, calm, and goal-oriented individual. BCCL Estimated Ad Revenue: Rs 4,352 cr for FY22 Revenue: Rs 7,394 cr for FY22 Partha Sinha joined BCCL in 2020, his primary responsibility is to grow revenue and facilitate the interaction between brands and content. Sinha is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, and IIM Ahmedabad. In a career spanning over 30 years, he has been a nuclear design engineer, a banker, the strategy and marketing head of media and internet companies, and an advertising strategist. He has worked with Citibank, Zee, Ogilvy, Publicis, and BBH. He was the Vice Chairman and Managing Director of McCann Worldgroup. Key individuals Samir Sainani, Director, West Times Of India is the only English Newspaper with 55 editions across India Times News Network Gaurav Dhawan spearheads the Network’s broadcast ad revenue operations and drives monetization strategy for the bouquet of channels across Hindi and English news, entertainment, and branded content. Part of the core team that launched TIMES NOW in 2005, Gaurav is a Times Network stalwart, who has played a pivotal role in shaping the brand’s market leadership and has been passionately involved in scaling revenue and new opportunities through his tenure with the network. With an illustrious career spanning over 26 years in the media and entertainment sector, Gaurav holds a demonstrated history of driving businesses to profitability, impacting solutions and innovation to deliver aggressive revenue expectations and sustained growth for businesses across Television, Print and Web. Times Internet Puneet Gupt Gupt joined Times Internet in 2012 as VP and Business Head, The Times of India Digital (Web & Mobile), and was elevated to the role of COO & Business Head, News in 2016. He took over as the COO, Times Internet, in 2018. During his tenure with Times Internet, Gupt grew the news business of Times of India (TOl) to significant profitability, and 50%+ market share. Key individuals Sumit Sethi, Chief Revenue Officer Radio Mirchi Preeti Nihalani "We have been leaders in the radio industry, both in terms of listenership and revenue. In the last 12 years, we’ve been experimenting beyond radio by introducing new elements like music awards, events, social/digital properties, and now audio stories. Today, one-third of our revenue is generated from non-radio streams. In the coming years, we see nearly half of our business coming from ‘Solutions Sales’. With fast paced adoption of digital portfolio of ours (Mirchi Plus, M-Ping, Digital Content Solutions, and so on), we see that nearly 25% of our revenue will come from digital business.” SONY PICTURES NETWORKS INDIA (SPNI) Estimated Ad Revenue: Rs 3,408.4 cr Consolidated for FY22 In his illustrious career spanning two and a half decades, Mehrotra has a proven record in driving revenues and delivering efficiencies to clients and businesses. Within SPN, he has moved through multiple channels, regions, and ranks. In his current role as Head of Ad Sales - Network Channels, he is responsible for strategizing, planning, and driving revenues for the Ad sales function. With a uni-focal thought of creating business solutions, he has invested his time in curating long-term client relationships. Mehrotra strongly believes and works towards reinforcing the culture of innovation and pragmatism to the function of Advertising Sales and lives by his philosophy, “I am into the business of repeat purchases.” He has been instrumental in turning around operations that thrive on the rapidly changing market challenges, and his rich experience and ability to comprehensively interpret priorities, align strategies, and innovate, have led to impactful enterprise-wide sales solution plans, and strategic initiatives for sales process reengineering. "My two-decade association with SPN India has seen the ad-sales function shift its focus on increasing customer affinity, and driving innovation through flexible and customized brand solutions. At SPN, we have witnessed numerous instances where advertisers have prioritised the network and incorporated it exclusively in media strategies. This is extremely rewarding from a servicing lens, as it helps us make a difference to businesses and consistently be one of the most successful broadcasters in the advertising space. For entertainment, SPN has keenly experimented with various scripted and non-scripted formats, and taken steps towards launching progressive and unique IP properties.” Ranjana Mangla She has been part of the SPN family since 2020, and is responsible for Sony LIV’s Digital Advertising Sales Strategy and Revenue. She is committed to building an ecosystem for advertisers from across geographies who consider Sony LIV as the preferred medium to target and engage with their brand audience. TV18 Estimated Advertisement and subscription revenue: Rs 1,223.49 cr STANDALONE FOR TV18 FOR FY22 Avinash Kaul is a broadcast professional with 24 years of experience, out of which the last 12 years have been in the capacity of a CEO. He has spent 20 years in the News business, and is currently managing the business operations of the largest TV news network in the country, Network18, managing brands like CNN News18, CNBC-TV18, News18 India, and History TV18. He has worked across content genres such as General News, Business News, Factual Entertainment, to name a few. Prior to this he worked as a CEO at Times Television Network. He is an ex-Board Member - Media Research Users Council (MRUC)- an industry body that owns and manages the IRS (Indian Readership Survey) - the largest media survey in India and the currency for all print advertising in India. He is also a Member -Extended Technical Committee - Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC). Key individuals Sidharth Newatia, National Revenue, Hindi, News18 Amazon Ads Estimated Advertisement Revenue: Rs 4,171.4 cr for FY22 Vijay joined Amazon Ads as the head of the agency business in India in 2016 and then became the head of the Large Customer Sales team in 2019. Vijay is a Digital Media leader with extensive experience in building businesses. He has spearheaded planning and execution of key initiatives across digital advertising, social media and video with P&L ownership. He was previously associated with Komli Media, RML and AdNear. Kapil was part of the core team that built and grew Amazon Ads in India. He is a tenured Amazonian leader with stints across multiple businesses. He currently leads the SMB Ads business including seller ads. He has a rich and diverse experience in Advertising, Banking, Manufacturing and Consulting. He is an alumni of IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta and was associated with RBS and GE in the past. Amazon India currently has 1.1 million sellers on its platform. It had 100 million registered users in 2022. Source: Shiprocket Alexa answered over 4 crore requests during the Amazon Great Indian Festival 2022 to guide customers to product searches, event store front pages, deals, games, information about products and more on the Amazon Android shopping app During festive sale, women entrepreneurs selling through Amazon Saheli sold 6 products every minute Flipkart Ads Estimated Advertisement Revenue: Rs 2,083.5 cr in FY22 With over 15+ years of experience across APAC, he has a consistent record of accomplishing aggressive goals and achieving turnarounds. At Flipkart he has orchestrated the rise of Flipkart Ads to the top three/four Digital ad platforms in India in a short time. He is responsible for overall revenue, business strategy, business development, marketing, advertiser relations, operations, hiring and representing Flipkart Ads at all external forums. An important part of his role is crafting the vision that will unlock the next wave of exponential growth. Prior to this, he was the Executive Director for South East Asia where he led growth for Affle. In his previous roles, Sankalp was part of leading media agencies (Zenith Optimedia, Cheil and DDB) managing top brands, in India, Malaysia and Singapore. "Our major goals are to build an ads platform that ensures that both sellers/brands and consumers see the most relevant messaging. Also, from a seller/brand perspective, we want to enable solutions and advertising experiences that fulfil multiple marketing objectives - building awareness, driving consideration, inducing trials and conversions. And close the loop on all investments through full funnel attribution and insights. Flipkart Ads is already a scaled platform that enables tens of thousands of sellers and brands to increase the velocity of their consideration and purchases. We will continue to invest behind newer opportunities on and off platform, which allow our partners to create disproportionate success for their marketing goals. The adtech market is volatile right now with changes like third party cookie deprecation, iOS changes that empower customers to decide tracking, among other things. These will reinforce migration to a platform like ours that relies on first party intent.” Flipkart witnessed highest-ever number of concurrent users with 1.6 million users per second in its ninth edition of ‘Big Billion Days 2022’ festive sales HT Media + HMVL Estimated Advertisement Revenue: Rs 1,600 cr CONSOLIDATED FOR HT MEDIA + HMVL FOR FY22 "I strongly believe that today one of the most important responsibilities of a media sales leader is to put together a team that provides business growth solutions to advertisers, and not just ads. We’ve also observed that customized solutions result in significantly better yields and client retention. Personally, I take pride in having played a role in attracting fresh young talent to HT Media over the years and building a dynamic, passionate team. One of the key challenges in the last few years has been to navigate the entire sales organization through a major digital pivot at HT Media, as well as taking multiple large-scale changes like brand refreshes to market, and expansion of digital platforms from three to more than twenty today.” Key individuals Rajat Kumar, Chief Revenue Officer – U.P, U.K, Bihar & Jharkhand, HT Media Dainik Bhaskar Estimated Advertisement Revenue: Rs 1,182.73 cr overall for FY22 Satyajit Sengupta, Chief Corporate Sales and Marketing Officer, has been associated with Dainik Bhaskar for more than five years. With an experience of nearly 25 years, he has played a crucial role in generating around 35- 40% of the advertising revenue for the organization from across the country. He plays a central role in managing the sales revenue of 24 mega editions across India. Prior to Dainik Bhaskar, Sengupta was the Associate Vice President, The Times of India Group, wherein he led the Metro Response team, generating revenue for all Times Group publications. "I think my biggest accomplishment has been to build a great team. Our advertising team is seen as the go to team to generate ideas that are innovative, and deliver the best of eye balls and results. I don’t think there are any regrets. Unless one talks about the lost opportunity in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. I think the best years for Dainik Bhaskar lie ahead, and I am proud and glad to be a part of this path-breaking organization.” Key individual Harrish Bhatia has been with DB Corp for more than 21 years. In 2007, he was elevated as CEO of Media/Entertainment and Consumer Durables divisions of DB Corp Ltd (Radio Division). Bhatia was appointed the group’s President in 2017, and has since been leading a group of seven COOs across India. In addition, he was in charge of the top line, brand, and HR functions, as well as the team’s growth and development. Jagran Prakashan Limited Estimated Advertisement Revenue: Rs 1,139 cr overall for FY22 "India is one of the largest and fastest-growing Digital consumer markets in the world, with digital adoption increasing rapidly in both urban and rural areas. Since I joined Jagran, there has been tremendous growth and numerous opportunities created to build various revenue streams within the organisation. In the last five years, Jagran has grown at a CAGR of 20%. Though traditional digital advertising remains a significant contributor to our overall revenue, new innovative solutions for building IPs, branded content, and content syndication have worked particularly well for us in the last two years. Branded content has grown by 33%, IPs, and Events contributed to 70%, and content syndication 21% on an average, adding significantly to Jagran New Media’s overall revenue pie. This year, we plan to launch in six regional languages, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Bengali as our advertisers want to reach every corner of the country.” Key individuals Vishal Varma, AVP, Jagran New Media, Corporate Sales Truecaller Ads Sagar Manikpure joined Truecaller Ads in 2022 as Vice President for Global Ads Business. He is responsible for driving the global ads business for Truecaller through the levers of product, sales, partnerships and cross functional collaboration. Prior to this, Sagar worked with Airpush, a digital advertising solutions company for around 7 years. Before Airpush, Sagar worked with MyParichay as Vice President - Products and Adiquity / Guruji.com as Head - Business Development for around 6 months and 6 years respectively. Sagar is an engineering graduate. Key individual Madhuri Krishnan, Global Ad Sales Director Sun TV Advertising revenue and sale of broadcast slot: Rs 1,389.29cr consolidated for FY22 George Alex has been associated with Sun TV Network for more than 20 years. He joined the company in 1995, and went on to become its Network Sales Head in 2016. Over the years, Alex has assumed many roles. He worked as a General Manager of Tamil GEC Sun TV, prior to taking responsibility of the network sales, which includes his domain in Tamil, Malayalam, and Marathi. He is a strong sales professional with an MBA, focused on Sales and Marketing from the University of Madras. Key individual Milan Dev Singh Dinakaran RMR Ramesh has a rich experience of over three decades in the media industry. He played an active role in the initial days of their first video magazine in Tamil, named ‘Poomalai’ and Suryan FM. He went on to become Vice President - Administration, HR and Projects, Sun TV. He is currently MD of Kal Publications, which owns Dinakaran, Tamil Murasu and Kungumum Group of Magazines. Key individual Rajesh Kannan Red FM "We have grown to become one of the largest private FM networks with 69 stations across 67 cities with one of the highest listenership. We are not just a radio station but a holistic entertainment brand offering 360 degree solutions for our advertising patrons with activations, IPs, on-ground events, podcasts, digital audio-video production, and social media amplification.” Key individual Renuka Iyer India Today (TV Today Network) Income from advertisement and other related operations FY 22: Rs 852.54 cr overall Total Revenue: Rs 930.1 cr (TV Today Network Consolidated- net sales 31st March ‘22) Rahul Kumar Shaw has been working with TV Today Network Limited for more than nine years. He was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the Television business before getting re-designated as the CEO of the Television and Radio business in 2021. Shaw has an experience of over 25 years in the business of advertising across Print, Television, Radio & Sports Management and has worked with Turner International India Pvt. Ltd; SET India Pvt. Ltd.; Star India Pvt. Ltd.; NDTV Imagine; INX Media; and Zee Entertainment. While his formative years were spent with Bennett Coleman and Co Ltd., specialising in selling advertising solutions in Print media, the second act of his career saw him traversing across a variety of genres in TV - premium English Movies, English Entertainment, Mass General Entertainment, Hindi Movies, International News, Kids Entertainment, Niche Hindi General Entertainment, Premium English News Channel, Sports Business, Hindi News Channels, Regional Channel, and Events. Key Individual: Salil Kumar, CEO, Digital, India Today Aaj Tak became the First TV news channel to cross 20 million subscribers on YouTube. ZMCL Estimated Ad Revenue: Rs 822.65 cr Consolidated for FY22 Joy Chakraborty joined the Zee Group as Chief Business Officer in 2022. He has more than 29 years of core media industry experience, having worked with Goldmines Telefilms, Enterr10 Media, TV Today Network, Forbes India, Times Group, and TV 18 Group in various roles and positions. He is instrumental in driving key responsibilities, such as defining and executing the right strategy for business development activities while ensuring its fit with the company’s broader vision and ambition. An alumnus of Harvard Business School, this is Chakraborty’s second stint with Zee Group as he had started his career with Zee Entertainment. Chakraborty oversees sales, distribution and marketing team, revenue generating avenues, and helps in building a strong client base for sales in news channels. Key individuals Gunjan Taneja, Vice President and Head Global Sales, ZMCL ABP Network Estimated Revenue: Rs 700 cr for FY22 A new-age leader, Mona Jain joined the ABP Network in 2019. In the past, she was associated with Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd. (ZEEL) for six years, where she served as Executive Vice President, AD Sales, and has a proven track record of 30 years in media marketing, and promotions. Prior to ZEEL, Jain was the CEO of Vivaki Exchange for almost 9 years, where she was designated as the India Head – Strategic Investments. She has also worked at Cheil Communications and Mudra Communications, where she held the positions of Executive Director and Media Director respectively. She started her career with Hindustan Thompson Associates (HTA), and holds vast experience in the fields of communications and marketing. "Some of my key successes at ABP Network include handling of the COVID situation, and to ensure that the Network’s revenue was protected. I was able to maximize and garner a fair share of the money that was available in the market. Yet another success I would say was to catapult Digital revenue manifold - especially revenue coming in from direct content-led solutions. I was also responsible for strengthening the content-led solution on all language channels to provide a contextual opportunity for brands to engage with their consumers in a far more integrated manner.” Today ABP News, ABP Majha, ABP Ananda, ABP Asmita, ABP Desam, ABP Ganga, ABP Sanjha, and ABP Nadu are also actively reporting news digitally. Anandabazar Patrika "One of my key accomplishments would be the way we have been able to carve out hybrid solutions for clients, leveraging multimedia and providing impact for the advertiser. Another accomplishment was using the Portfolio Approach to grow revenues. Here we provide a client with a plan or package, which adds on other media options like digital, radio, sampling, etc., thereby satiating the requirement of the advertiser. As we celebrate the Centenary year, we take pride that ABP enjoys a lot of advertiser and reader faith and trust. Building on this, we want to continue being the preferred choice of media when it comes to Bengal. Today, we are no longer just a newspaper publisher, but our expertise is across print, television, digital, influencers, radio, and activations.” NDTV Estimated Advertising Revenue: Rs 344.54 cr (consolidated) for FY22 Rachit Tiwary rejoined NDTV in 2022. Prior to this, he was associated with NDTV from 2012-2017. Before his second stint with NDTV, he was leading Republic World’s R Fluid as the Business Head. This was in continuation to his role as the Director of Brand Solutions at Republic Media Network. Key individual Rajesh Kumar Malayala Manorama "Dispelling some of the myths regarding the Print Industry will be a great challenge. For instance, “print is dying” is something which we keep hearing. Covid definitely disrupted the distribution nationally, however, Kerala had the least disruption due to Covid. We are still operating at close to 2 million copies, and hoping to catch up with 2019 levels. In Kerala, Print gets close to 50% of the total advertising revenue. Despite that, planners tend to give least priority to print in Kerala taking the cue from the national situation. Commoditisation of the media is yet another challenge we are all facing, hence the huge discounts in the rates that the Media buyers are demanding. This has also led to a lot of unhealthy practices where the merit of the media takes a back seat.” MMTv PR Satheesh joined MMTv in 2014 as Head - Sales and Marketing and has been associated with the organization for more than seven years. He was elevated to the post of CEO in 2021. Key Individuals: Smitha Narayanan, Head of Ad Sales and Marketing Manorama Online Boby Paul has been heading the Marketing, Revenues & Partnerships for ManoramaOnline News Products for the last nine years. He comes with a well-rounded experience across the digital media ecosystem, having worked with Agencies, Ad-Networks & Publishers. MATHRUBHUMI "I have been part of the management team, which transformed Mathrubhumi from a Print media company to a modern media organisation. We are now into all verticals of media business like Print, Television, Radio, Digital, OOH, activations, exhibitions, events, etc. My professional mantra is to develop the best possible team, and to try understanding the client’s business.” Key individuals Naveen Sreenivasan, Head, TRD Sales Jayakrishnan N, National Head, Metro Sales- Print Sakshi Media Group "Sakshi Media Group is a young and dynamic organisation, and it has offered me stellar opportunities to lead our TV, Digital, HR, IT, and Corporate Communications verticals. I have been associated with the organisation for more than a decade, and was part of several high impact initiatives that I lead from ideation to implementation. My major goals here are growing our digital assets, sustaining our leadership status in geographies where we are doing well, and growing in other target markets. More importantly reinventing ourselves, offering innovative and creative solutions to fulfil the needs of our consumers, and the brands which advertise on our media platforms are our major goals at Sakshi.” The Hindu Estimated Total Revenue: Rs 858.89 cr for FY20 Suresh Balakrishna joined The Hindu Group as Chief Revenue Officer in 2018. Balakrishna is accountable for all India print advertisement sales (National accounts and South accounts), THEME (Events & Activations), and Brand Marketing & Solutions. His mandate is to build a sustainable, future-oriented high-performance sales and marketing team that delivers performance with purpose on the advertising front across both ATL & BTL activities. Prior to joining The Hindu Group, he was Chief Executive Officer, South Asia and Middle East, Kinetic Advertising India Private Limited, part of the WPP Group. In his 31 years of professional journey, he has acquired considerable experience and expertise in all forms of media (Print, Television, Outdoor), as well as the agency side of the business. Paytm Ads Responsible for overseeing all facets of Ads Business for Paytm, Kapoor drives the vision, mission and execution for Paytm Ads. With over 22 years of experience in media and marketing for offline and online platforms, Sameer has been a catalyst in building the team and revenues at Paytm Ads. Having worked across geographies and industries in various leadership roles, Sameer brings along his comprehensive expertise on working with global brands, and leading digital challenges for long-term growth. Indian Express George Varghese has over 20 years of experience and expertise in Product Marketing and Management, Business Strategy, New Business Development, etc. An alumnus of St. Joseph’s Pune, he holds an MBA with specialization in Marketing Sales Management from IMDR, Pune as well. Before assuming his current role, he was working as the President, KEC International Ltd from 2010 to August 2013. Indian Express (Online) Mukesh Kumar Singh has a total experience of 20+ years in building capabilities and converting ideas to execution with agility. He is a passionate, resourceful, highly motivated, and a result oriented professional. Singh specialises in generating revenue on online media, and has implemented a pragmatic but holistic sales strategy to churn out the maximum revenue potential from clients. Singh is currently leading the revenues for online media services of The Indian Express Group. In the past, he had worked with The Times of India, The Hindustan Times Group, and Network18 Group. He had started his career in the Digital world way back with Times of Money. "One of the surest signs of a thriving company in this competitive media and Digital industry is robust and consistent revenue growth. The task has not been easy to accomplish over the past 11 years. We took the digital revenue of the Indian Express group to triple digits, with more than 25% growth year on year. Today, we command premium campaigns with industry leading CPM numbers, and there is nothing to regret about.” TV9 Total Revenue: Rs 545.22 cr for FY22 Amit Tripathi joined TV9 as Chief Revenue Officer in 2020. Tripathi has over 21 years of experience in Sales, Marketing & Business Development. He has an expertise in managing operations in large business environment, formulating and implementing business strategies, developing new business, identifying new markets and key people, and developing new product concepts.” Key individual Azim Lalani, President, Revenue- Digital India TV "I think my key accomplishment is consistent performance for almost a decade. But also, building revenues and yield to a sustainable level, and holding the same even under extreme circumstances, e.g.,pandemic hit year and building a great, lean, mean, working machine – India TV’s Sales Team. I am also proud of creating impact revenue and yield benchmarks for properties like Aap Ki Adalat & Aaj Ki Baat. Today, there are too many national Hindi News channels, with everyone offering almost the same volume of inventory, and therefore, the supply is on the higher side, compared to the actual demand. This makes it difficult for any Sales Team, irrespective of channel performance or ranking, to sell at a stable/profitable rate. Had the supply been less, things would have been much better. In this fiercely competitive scenario, low-performing channels try to build their revenues by offering too many freebies and low rates, which further confuses the clients/buyers /agencies in deciding the “right price range’’ for National Hindi News Genre channels.” Republic Hersh Bhandari was elevated as Group COO in 2022. He oversees the entire national operations for all existing broadcast channels of the Network. With 24 years of experience, Hersh is a well-established industry veteran with the highest achievements to his credit. With his impeccable record, Hersh leads and strategizes all future growth of the Network’s broadcasting business into languages and regions. Hersh manages the entire broadcast business operations from the Network’s offices in Noida and Mumbai. Key individual Anand Sreenivasan, National Head, English Branded content VerSe Innovation (Dailyhunt and Josh) "I have spearheaded the entire company culture, leadership focus, and cross-functional teams to prioritize Monetization as a DNA-defining, strategic goal for the company. I have also led the market-expansion of Dailyhunt to international markets (starting with MENA region), and rapidly built and scaled the monetization org to capture and lead the short video space. Today, the Digital industry, especially rich content platforms need to work on creating the pull, and build formats for brand storytelling. They also need to move away from performance-only deals as Digital offers a very innovative canvas for brand-building. This has been a big miss in the recent past. Moreover, content marketing can also help create memorable campaigns, build differentiated positioning, and deliver sustained brand lift. Our goal is to become the default news destination for a Billion Indians.” InMobi "We expect 2023 to be a promising year. Our vision is to convert the passive digital surfaces into smart surfaces by leveraging the capabilities provided by today’s mobile devices. As hyperconnected consumers spend more time on their smartphones, they need more fulfilling experiences to catch their eye in the moment. It’s time for brands to take mobile marketing into their own hands and create a new age of seamless, serendipitous discovery. This ‘one-click discovery’ that is being pioneered by brands through Lock Screen Marketing, is expected to soon become the go-to platform for connecting with consumers.” InMobi became India’s first Unicorn in 2011 LinkedIn "India, like the rest of the world, navigates a period of economic uncertainty, staying agile and adaptive is key to coming out strong in this environment. At this time, our role is to support decision makers build a marketing strategy that can weather external challenges. As per our latest research, two-thirds of B2B marketing leaders said that they will continue investing in long-term brand building campaigns to stay front of mind for customers — this optimistic and spirited approach indicates that leaders across the board are applying lessons from the pandemic. Our goal is to continue building effective measurement solutions, and as part of the many approaches that we’re exploring, we also are applying new AI technologies to measure campaign success and understand the buyer’s path to purchase.” Key individual Abhai Singh, Head LinkedIn Sales Solution, India Yahoo "At Yahoo we are pursuing growth opportunities through our ad tech business, focusing on key growth drivers in India, including Demand-side Platform (DSP), Supply Side Platform (SSP), and Native Platforms into a unified stack. With one of the fastest growing DSPs in India, Yahoo’s ad business in the country has been a strong contributor in the company’s transformation to growth globally over the last several quarters, and we are very proud of these accomplishments, despite being affected by tough macro-economic factors.” "The last-click attribution model may make sense today, but it’s imperfect and will diminish quickly. In this tough economic environment, brands need to start focusing on what’s effective. At a time when e-commerce has soared, marketers have focused on the lower funnel, chasing audiences for those last clicks, and optimizing their campaigns accordingly, especially on social media. Yet, when we’re heading towards the cookie-less future, and in tougher economic conditions, pumping more money into last clicks alone will not suffice.” Key individuals Swapnil Maske, DSP Strategy Lead, India Airtel Ads Narayanan heads the Ads business for Airtel and has extensive advertising experience having led business roles in Europe & Asia for 17+ years. His expertise in the digital ecosystem stems from his experience in e-commerce companies like Lazada, Zalora, Snapdeal, Reebonz, and with core Adtech technology companies like Mediamath helping him to create the right product-market fit across Adtech & Martech. Sharechat and Moj Estimated Advertising Revenue: Rs 212.16cr for FY22 "Given that 180 million Indians use ShareChat monthly to consume content in their own languages, I aim to establish it as the platform of choice for advertisers who are also looking to engage their target audiences at scale in the language of their choice. As for Moj, I plan to work with our partners to help them collaborate with India’s largest creator community in building tailor-made solutions to help them meet their brand objectives. ShareChat and Moj are India’s fastest growing advertising platforms, which are seeing massive interests from advertisers across industries. Our ability to deliver innovative and creative solutions at scale to drive engagement for brands sets us apart from other publishers, and helps advertisers go beyond regular media inventory buys. At ShareChat, we are gunning for 5X growth in revenue in 2022. We are growing our focus on artificial intelligence extensively and hiring not only in India, but in the UK, U.S., and other geographies.” Key individuals Neha Chatterjee, Sales Director (East) Bharat24 Manoj Jagyasi joined Bharat24 as Chief Business Officer and Strategic Advisor to the board. He is responsible for revenue management, marketing research, operations, and content co-creation. Jagyasi is also involved in all aspects of the broadcast business and advising the board for future expansion. He joins from Zee Media, where he worked as Chief Revenue Offiicer for around 2 years, and previously as Executive Cluster Head for one year. Twitter India Revenue: Rs 157 cr for FY22 Kanika Mittal is the Country Head for Twitter India leading large customer solutions and responsible for Revenue and Monetization across industry verticals, like Auto, CPG, Tech, OEMs, M&E, Enterprise and others. During the course of her tenure tenure, she has landed a strong positioning for Twitter with brands centered around the power of conversations and helped diversify and grow the business. Her role intersects Marketing, Technology, Digital, Policy and Culture. Jio Ads Gulshan Verma joined Jio Ads in 2021, and before assuming this role, he was responsible for Disney+ Hotstar Ads’ business covering Sales, Sales Strategy, Operations, AdTech/Data Partnerships, branded Content Studios (Brand Lab), Measurement/ROI, and Customer Marketing. He is also credited with setting up Hotstar Brand Labs. Prior to Disney+ Hotstar, Verma was with Times Internet as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), where he was responsible for all revenue streams across Content/Media, Transaction and Classifieds businesses. He has also worked at Komli Media, Yahoo!, EY, McKinsey, and Associated Press. He is an alumnus of London School of Economics, Indian School of Business, and Kellogg School of Management. Key individual Viraj Jit Singh News Nation Bhuwan Bhatt joined News Nation Network Private Limited in 2022. He is responsible for the performance of all revenue-generating avenues, driving growth through strategic decisions, partnering with key stakeholders, and steering revenue acceleration through his leadership. Bhatt has more than two decades of experience at senior positions in the media sector with leading broadcasting conglomerates, such as TV Today, Times group, Star TV, and NDTV. He has a proven track record of bringing great results in revenue optimization by leveraging strategic potential of existing assets. Dinamalar Martin King joined Dinamalar as a national sales head in 2013. He is responsible for the ad sales of the Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, and Pondicherry editions of the daily. With over two decades of experience, King started his career with Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd. After spending 11 years with the Times Group, he joined Radio City as its Regional Business Head before moving to Radio One, Chennai. He is a result oriented senior professional with 25 years of experience and expertise in sales, marketing, and general management. He has proven leadership abilities that include sales, marketing, brand building, team building and performance management. He is good at developing influential and positive relationships with people across levels. King is known to have a well-established and proven track record for delivering corporate objectives using allocated resources and within the allotted time. Dinamalar was founded by philanthropist T. V. Ramasubbaiyer on September 6, 1951 Eenadu I Venkat joined Eenadu group in 1987, and is currently the Director of Eenadu Television Private Limited. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Science, and has been in the communication field since 1970. He joined the Board of Directors of Ushodaya Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., publishers of Eenadu Telugu newspaper, and the ETV group of channels in 1987. Venkat was the past Chairman of Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), and a founding member of the Media Research Users Council (MRUC), as well as the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF). He is also on the Board of Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), International News Media Association (INMA), and Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC). Key individual KV Ramarao, National Sales Head (Print and Online) Published by The Ramoji Group, Eenadu was first issued in August 10, 1974 Big FM Pratanu Mohanty joined BIG FM 6 years ago, and prior to that, he was associated with Star TV, JLL (Accenture, Mumbai) and other Industrial Process Automation profiles. He has a degree in B.E Electrical and PG Diploma in Data Science. His expertise includes enablement of using Tech Simplifying processes, identification, and implementation of work flows to connect multiple departments in order to build effective collaboration. Big FM is part of Reliance Broadcast, and has over 58 radio stations across India Vikatan Media Balamurugan is responsible for the overall ad sales and revenue generation for the group in Print, Digital, Activations, and Awards. Focusing on growing and creating new revenue streams and opportunities, and in turn significantly contributing to the overall growth of the Vikatan Group, he is a highly experienced Sales & Marketing Professional with more than 25 years in Media selling. He has been in all facets of media, Print, TV, Digital, Events & OOH. "My second stint in Vikatan started in March’21, I have come back to the group after five years. This time, I was given the responsibility of increasing the revenue from the previous financial year. I have successfully executed many awards, such as, the Nanayam Vikatan Business Star Award, V Connect Pinnacle Awards, and VConnect Pulse Health Care Awards. The number of clients have reduced and spends have reduced. Clients prefer electronic media over Print. We identify their challenges and problem statement, and we provide them with proper solutions. We are converting challenges into opportunities, and updating our Digital media. Since the restrictions are over, we are coming out with our marquee properties. Cinema and Nambikkai Awards.” Hello FM Ramesh SK (Remy) was elevated to the position of Chief Executive Officer of Hello FM in 2021. As one of its founding members, he has been the singular architect of the brand’s culture, character, and content. For the last sixteen years, he has been spearheading the creation and curation of the network’s programming over its many phases of evolution and growth. Hello FM is owned by Malar Publications, which also owns Thanthi TV and Daily Thanthi It was first started in 2006 at Chennai, and Coimbatore
Senior Director, Digital First Businesses
Director, Customer Solutions
Director, Business Solutions
Director, Marketing Partners
Director, Omnichannel Businesses
Director, Agency Partnerships & Sales, Google Customer Solutions
Director & Head of Ads Business
Director, Small and Medium Businesses (India) at Meta
Head of Network Advertising Sales
Group, Madison World, Kantar, IMRB and Initiative Universal Media.
Head of Entertainment, Ad Sales & Strategy
Head of Sports Sales
Executive Vice President, Head, Ad Sales
Chief Growth Officer – Advertisement Revenue
Chief Revenue Officer for Digital & SMB, South Asia
Head of Sales - India
Head - Network Sales
Nupur Saxena, Revenue Head, Youth Music and Entertainment
Pritesh Magodia, Revenue Head, Hindi Movies and FTA Channels
Pavitra KR, Revenue Head, Colors
Vivek Mohan Sharma, Head, Branded Content
Gaurav Mashruwala, Head, Viacom18 Live
Sachin Puntambekar, Head, Consumer Products
SVP, Head of Business - AVOD (Voot) at Viacom18 Media
Senior Director, India and Southeast Asia
President- Response
Sudha Natarajan, Director, National Verticals and Creative Business
Ashok Bindra, Director, North
Deepak Saluja, Director, South and East
Chief Revenue Officer
COO
Vivek Pandey, Vice President, Revenue strategy and analytics
Chief Operating Officer, ENIL
Head- Ad Sales, Network Channels
Head of Ad Revenue, SonyLiv
CEO - Network18 (Broadcast) & Managing Director A+E Networks | TV18
Gitanjali Pasricha, CNBC TV18-Digital
Abhinay Chauhan, National Revenue Head-Government Vertical
Prabhat Chatterjee, National Revenue Head, English and Business Cluster-CNN News18 and CNBC TV18 Sales
Karishma Dhawan, National Revenue Head, Factual Entertainment (A+E NetworkTV18)
S Shivakumar, COO Branded Content (Focus)
Ahtesham Ali, Head-Programmatic Sales (Network18 as Head of Programmatic Business and Operations)
Smriti Mehra, CEO, Business News
Director, Large Customer Ad Sales, Amazon India
Director, SMB Ads, Amazon India
VP, Monetization
Executive Director, HT Media
Neeraj Singh, CRO, West, HT Media Group
Mitesh Desai, Agency Partnerships and Sales Excellence, HT Media Group
Karthi Narayanan, Chief Revenue Officer, South – Digital & Print, HT Media Group
Anil Dua, Chief Revenue Officer – Print & Digital, HT Media Group
Amitava Bhattacharya, Chief Revenue Officer – East, HT Media Group
Neeraj Saraswat, Chief Revenue Officer – Radio & Digital Innovation Businesses, HT Media Group
Chief Corporate Sales and Marketing Officer
President Sales and Marketing
Chief Revenue Officer, Jagran New Media
Dinesh Joshi, AVP, Jagran New Media, Head of the Monetisation and Strategic Partnership
Narender Kapoor, AVP, Jagran New Media, Regional Markets
Senior Vice President- Global Ads Business
Network Sales Head (Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi)
Network Sales Head (Telugu, Kannada and Bangla)
Managing Director
CGM, Marketing
COO & Director, RED FM & Magic FM
CRO
Source: BSE
CEO, Television and Radio Business
CBO, Zee Media
Abhay Ojha, Chief Business Officer, Linear Channels
Madhu Soman, Chief Business Officer, Linear and Digital
Devdas Krishnan, CEO, IndiaDotCom Digital Pvt. ltd.
Chief Revenue Officer, ABP Network
National Head, Ad Sales
National Business Head
Global Head - Ad Sales and Monetization
Vice President, Marketing, Ad Sales
CEO, MMTv
Sathyajith Divakaran, Senior General Manager
Senior General Manager Marketing
General Manager, Advertisement
Director, TV & Digital Business and Brand Communications
Chief Revenue Officer
Senior Vice President- Head of Business
Chief Executive Officer
Head- Revenue, Indian Express Online Media Services
Chief Revenue Officer
Executive President, Sales, India TV
Group COO - Broadcasting Division
Chief Revenue Officer, VerSe Innovation
Director - Revenue and New Business Partnerships, Consumer Platform Advertising
Director, Enterprise Marketing Solutions, LinkedIn
North & South Monetization and Agency Relationship
Senior Manager, India Sales
Sushil D’Souza, Sr. Manager Field Sales
Kishor Kumar, Sr. Manager Field Sales
Himanshu Goswami, Sr. Manager, Field Sales
Head of Business
Chief Revenue Officer, Sharechat and Moj
Debasmita Ghosh, Sales Director (South)
Satyen Kishan, Regional Director Sales
Satyajit Deb Roy, Senior Sales Director (North)
Chief Business Officer
Country Head, Twitter India
CEO, Jio Ads
CRO, Jio Entertainment Services
Chief Business Officer
National Sales and Marketing Head
Director
Head - Revenue Maximization, Traffic and Administration
General Manager and National Ad Sales Head, Vikatan Group
CEO, Hello FM
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