MAM
JWT appoints Max Hegerman as digital head
MUMBAI: JWT India, a WPP company, has appointed Max Hegerman as SVP and digital head JWT India Group.
Earlier, Hegerman headed Tribal DDB India for over two years. Based out of Delhi, he will be responsible for managing and growing the agency‘s digital offering to clients across all markets.
Hegerman has over two decades of experience in communication, and has spent the last 11 years integrating digital capabilities into traditional advertising agencies.
He has worked at agencies like Hal Riney & Partners (San Francisco), Wieden+Kennedy (Portland), Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (San Francisco), GSD&M (Austin), Euro RSCG (Irvine, California), Energy BBDO (Chicago), StrawberryFrog (New York) and TBWAMedia Arts Lab (Beijing).
Max has worked across categories on many blue chip clients like LIC, Times Group, Nike, MTV, Idea Cellular, Volkswagen, Citibank, Wrigley, Apple, Volvo, BMW, Land Rover, Pizza Hut, SBC Communications, Scion (Toyota), Playboy, Oakley and Hyundai and Kia.
JWT CEO Colvyn Harris said, “The world is digital now. India‘s internet user base is expanding at a phenomenal pace. We need to lead and dominate this space as well: for our future growth, and for our clients as they are increasingly looking at JWT for newer solutions for their brands. For us to develop skills and capabilities in this extremely important area, we are strengthening our team bandwidth across India. With Max now we‘ll have the firepower to signal our serious intent in Digital.”
Hegerman adds, “I am very excited about the opportunity to work so closely with the JWT team in place. I plan to leverage my digital background (and passion) and hands-on experience in India to enhance JWT’s capabilities and credibility in the online space, across offices and offerings – and an amazing list of clients.”
AD Agencies
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.
