MAM
Lowe LDB Sri Lanka appoints Hari Krishnan as CEO
MUMBAI: Lowe + Partners Worldwide has appointed a new CEO for Sri Lanka. A former protégé of the group, Hari Krishnan has been appointed as the Lowe LDB Sri Lanka CEO. He will report to Lowe Lintas + Partners, India CEO Joseph George.
Commenting on Krishnan’s appointment, George said that having learned the nitty-gritty of the business since his formative days at Lowe coupled with his vast exposure across other agencies in senior roles, Krishnan is perfectly placed to lead the agency in Sri Lanka. “It’s good to have Hari back into our fold after all these years. Over the last five years, Sri Lanka has seen high GDP growths and the country is at an exciting inflection point now,” he said.
Krishnan added, “I started my career with Lintas in India in ’96-97 and learnt my fundamentals from the great University of knowledge that is Lowe Lintas. So I’m extremely happy and thrilled to be back. It’s a homecoming of sorts in that sense. It’s an honour and a challenge to lead such an operation and I’m really looking forward to partnering the young, talented team there in driving the philosophy of ‘Populist Creativity’ and taking Lowe LDB to greater heights.”
Krishnan joins the agency from Grey where he was the SVP and business head for South. His new mandate would be to drive Lowe LDB Sri Lanka into being a leading creative powerhouse in the country. The only ‘Superbrand’ in the advertising category in Sri Lanka, Lowe LDB manages a diverse portfolio of brands across various categories from Detergents to Insurance to Telecom.
The agency was also the most awarded agency at the Effies in 2013 and together with Unilever is the most awarded partnership in the history of Effies in Sri Lanka.
Krishnan has almost two decades of work experience; nearly all of it in advertising besides a stint with Star TV as VP, marketing. He has experience across multiple categories/consumer segments, in leading large multi-functional teams and in leading a P&L operation to success.
In his last job at Grey India as SVP and business head, he spearheaded the transformation of the agency operations in South including leading the agency to a spree of new biz acquisitions including DELL India, ITC Foods, Stovekraft, Fortis Healthcare amongst others.
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
