MAM
Long Ellis is MTV US COO ad sales
MUMBAI: MTV US has announced the appointment of Long Ellis to the position of COO, MTV Networks Ad Sales.
In this position, Ellis will oversee the strategic planning, systems development and pricing and inventory management of the MTV Networks Ad Sales division.
MTV Networks ad sales president Larry Divney said, “Long is a very experienced and extraordinarily talented sales executive, with a deep understanding of our businesses. I am really pleased that he will be taking on this crucial role and help us to ensure that the MTV Networks’ Ad Sales team will be the most effective, pro-active and efficient operation in the business,”
Ellis said, ” The advertising landscape is changing rapidly, and working closely with Larry, I am confident that we can develop innovative and better ways to meet our clients needs as we move forward, particularly in this new multi-platform
world.”
Ellis is a senior sales executive with over 16 years of broadcast advertising sales experience. Prior to this appointment, he served as Comedy Central VP ad sales. He, managed ad sales marketing projects across the US and oversaw the channel’s New York ad sales staff. Previous to this role, he oversaw the comedy network’s inventory, pricing, planning and commercial operations. He also led an MTVN Task Force that developed the new pricing and inventory organisational structure. He joined Comedy Central in 1999.
Before Comedy Central, Ellis had been Director of Broadcast Television at OneMediaPlace, and an account manager at Discovery. He began his career at CBS, where he worked in both programming acquisition and ad sales.
Brands
India’s fastest-growing credit-on-UPI platform Kiwi appoints Sumeet Basrani as chief business officer
Fintech shifts from early adoption to mass distribution through bank and ecosystem partnerships
BENGALURU: Kiwi is gearing up for its next growth sprint, bringing in Sumeet Basrani as chief business officer to turn early traction into mass-market scale. The credit-on-UPI platform is now pivoting from product adoption to aggressive distribution, betting on deeper bank and ecosystem tie-ups to widen access.
Basrani arrives with over 15 years in cards and payments, with stints at CRED, OneCard, ICICI Bank and Visa. At CRED, he helped build and scale partnerships across credit cards, payments and lending with banks and financial institutions, experience Kiwi is now counting on as it looks to expand its footprint.
The mandate is clear: take credit on UPI from a promising innovation to a mass product. Kiwi is aiming to unlock access for millions, aligning its push with shifting consumer behaviour while moving from product strength to market scale.
“This is a natural next step for us. As we grow, it becomes important to have leadership that can translate market shifts into clear business and product decisions. Sumeet understands how banks, networks and consumer platforms intersect, which is exactly where Kiwi is building. His experience in scaling businesses will be critical as we take credit on UPI to a much larger audience,” Siddharth Mehta, co-founder, Kiwi, said.
Basrani sees a market on the cusp. “Credit on UPI is at an inflection point; early adoption is visible, but the real opportunity lies in embedding credit seamlessly into everyday payments, while expanding access to credit. Kiwi is well-positioned to lead this shift, and the next phase will be about scaling distribution and unlocking new use cases for credit,” he said.
Founded as Gokiwi Tech, the startup is positioning itself at the centre of India’s evolving payments stack. It was the first to offer credit on UPI via RuPay cards in partnership with banks, and has already issued over 2 lakh such cards in under two years. The ambition is blunt: become the leading issuer of RuPay credit cards by 2026.
With leadership muscle added and distribution in focus, Kiwi is no longer just testing the waters. It is diving headfirst into the race to own credit on UPI at scale.
