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Vdopia appoints Daniel Ahiakpor as VP, business development
MUMBAI: Vdopia has announced the appointment of Daniel Ahiakpor as its vice president, business development, a newly created position in Vdopia’s New York office. Ahiakpor will be responsible for striking and developing key publisher and mobile-app partnerships for the company.
Vdopia co-founder, chief operating officer Chhavi Upadhyay said, “Daniel is an accomplished advertising technology professional with over 12 years of experience in sales, business development, publisher relations, and ad operations with a focus on video. He will be an important addition to our New York operation as we ramp up our mobile video programmatic buying and selling capabilities.”
Ahiakpor began his career with Providian Financial (now owned by JPMorgan Chase) as a project coordinator – marketing operations.
Ahiakpor comes to Vdopia from Adap.tv (New York), an AOL Company, and a video ad exchange and platform, where he led the company’s North American publisher platform business as Sr. director/head of publisher platform sales.
Prior to that, he was a senior member of the publisher business development team at ScanScout, a technology-driven video ad network which was sold to Tremor Video in late 2010.
Additionally, he has also held various roles in operations, ad technologies and sales development over several years for Yahoo and for Fox Interactive Media.
“I joined Vdopia because of its solid global position at the intersection of mobile and video. As we know, both are among the most important and fastest growing categories in digital advertising. Simply put, mobile is the environment in which audiences are most engaged, and video is often the most effective and entertaining way to deliver branded messages to audiences,” explained Ahiakpor.
He added, “With its proprietary, VDO format, Vdopia brings innovation into the equation by helping marketers target and deliver creative branded video messages across mobile and tablet devices, with greater ease and efficiency. Vdopia is also bringing automation to its ad solution to further streamline the process of planning, buying and selling mobile video.”
Vdopia VP-APAC Preetesh Chouhan said, “Daniel is an accomplished advertising professional. He will play a pivotal role in Vdopia’s efforts to bring automation to its ad solution to further streamline the process of optimising mobile video. The recent inclusion of talented industry players like Daniel in our team will further boost the growth wave that Vdopia has been riding on.”
MAM
Sports appoints Arpith Kanade to lead Dream Cricket studio
Gaming veteran with 15-plus years joins as mobile title hits 25 million users in first year.
MUMBAI: Dream Cricket just pulled off the ultimate player signing because when your game’s smashing records, you need a veteran to keep the scoreboard ticking. Dream Sports has brought in industry stalwart Arpith Kanade to head the studio behind its breakout mobile cricket title, Dream Cricket, which has surged to 25 million users in its debut year, one of the fastest-growing cricket games worldwide. The appointment, announced on 24 February 2026, puts Kanade in charge of the game’s long-term roadmap, from product tweaks to cracking overseas markets.
With over 15 years in gaming spanning product strategy, live operations, and monetisation Kanade’s CV boasts leadership at Zynga (shaping FarmVille 2) and a founding role at 99Games across multiple genres. His fresh mandate comes as cricket’s global buzz builds, including its Olympic return in 2028, opening doors for digital experiences to hook fans beyond India.
Kanade said, “Cricket’s growing international footprint… presents a fresh opportunity for digital cricket experiences to reach new audiences. The focus will be on building a game that resonates not just with Indian fans but with players worldwide.”
For a title already rewriting mobile cricket’s growth charts, Kanade’s arrival feels like the perfect cover drive poised to turn viral momentum into a boundary-clearing legacy, one swipe at a time.
