MAM
Ravi Kiran promoted to Starcom South Asia CEO; Nayyar, Porwal also elevated
MUMBAI: Starcom Mediavest Group today announced promotions for three key individuals in its Indian operations. With immediate effect, Starcom India West/South MD Ravi Kiran, will move up to CEO of Starcom South Asia – which covers India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Starcom Delhi executive director Anita Nayyar moves up to managing director, India – North. Also Starcom general manager Manish Porwal moves up to executive director, India – West.
In order to preserve the dual management structure which was put in place in February 2003, and has driven some spectacular success, Starcom India will continue to have sub regions reporting in to Kiran.
What this means is that the Bangalore and Chennai office heads will be directly reporting in to Kiran. Additionally, the diversified units — Starcom IP, Starcom Entertainment, Relay and Star Sight — will continue to report directly to Kiran.
“While Starcom currently has operations only in India, there is a lot of interest from potential partners in the region and putting Ravi in charge ensures we have someone to drive our growth across these markets. We expect to have operations in Sri Lanka and Pakistan by early 2006 and Ravi will need to provide a centre for training, systems, tools and other resources out of India. Also, there are opportunities which require a unified perspective across all of our resources in India which Ravi will now be in a position to pursue,” said Starcom Mediavest Group Asia CEO D Sriram.
“I’m particularly pleased that the three individuals we are promoting today have all been with us now for over two years – Ravi in particular for seven. Continuity in senior management allows us the opportunity to grow and develop our structure around the same people who’ve proven their ability to drive success,” added Sriram.
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
