MAM
VivaKi Exchange restructures senior management; rolls out VivaKi Nerve Centre
MUMBAI: In a bid to strengthen its India presence, VivaKi Exchange India (earlier known as India Media Exchange) has restructured its senior management team and introduced a few operational changes for the region, all to be effective immediately.
Said VivaKi Exchange India chairperson Ambika Srivastava, “IMX in its new avatar as Vivaki Exchange presents strategic opportunities for the team to leverage its powerful scale in India. Our media buying clout ability is already noteworthy, and as we move into the new brand, our clients will witness the unique capabilities we bring to the fore. The VivaKi Exchange platform enables us to amass and supplement resources as well as invest in delivery of new tools, capabilities and technology platforms to clients in this dynamic and growing market.”
As per the changes, the VivaKi Exchange will be lead by Mona Jain as chief operating officer. Jain was until recently India head – strategic investments.
Speaking on her new role, Mona Jain said, “Today‘s market dynamics and vast media landscape including the integration of both offline and online opportunities coupled with the strong influence that the VivaKi Exchange will bring to the fore will be game changing. As IMX, we have been the greatest challenger and have amassed the best for our clients and now I am looking forward to the new panorama that VX will unfold for clients and the community alike.”
Jain will be working with Sejal Shah has been elevated to executive vice president and will be responsible for content and partnerships and Shikha Mahajan who joins VivaKi Exchange as vice president – expansion and alliances.
Meanwhile, VivaKi Exchange has also rolled out the VivaKi Nerve Center (VNC) in India with Pavan Chandra as managing director.
The VNC aims to bring cutting-edge technologies that will provide a competitive advantage to Starcom Mediavest, ZenithOptimedia and Solutions-Digitas in the months to come.
The new model from VivaKi makes an attempt to deliver powerful digital capabilities to the Groupe and its clients that are accelerated for the new media landscape. The VNC‘s primary function is to find and scale audiences that have the best affinity for clients‘ brands.
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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.
