Mukul Harjai joins Rusk Media as national category lead, brand partnerships

GURUGRAM: Mukul Harjai has swapped Sony Pictures Networks India for Rusk Media, taking up the role of national category lead, brand partnerships, in a move that adds another sharp ad-sales operator to the newer end of the media business. The appointment lands Harjai in Gurugram, tasked with helping brands connect with audiences through culture-first content and partnerships built for lasting business impact rather than one-off campaigns.

The move caps a career built almost entirely on the ad-sales floor. Harjai spent three years and five months at Sony Pictures Networks India as group head, ad sales for SAB TV, having joined in March 2023. Before that came a lengthy run at Viacom18 Media, nearly seven years in all, where he climbed from assistant manager to director of ad sales on the Colors network, working his way up through manager and senior manager roles along the way, evidence of a slow, steady climb rather than a lucky break.

Earlier still, Harjai cut his teeth at Star India in ad sales, followed by a stint as account manager at Radio Mirchi, and, before the media industry beckoned properly, spells in key accounts at JustDial and corporate sales at Info Edge’s Naukri.com. It is a career arc that has taken him from job portals to radio to television to, now, the more culturally-driven world of brand partnerships, and one that suggests Rusk Media has bought itself a fair amount of relationship capital along with the hire.

Whether “culture-first content” turns out to be the industry’s next big buzz-phrase or just this year’s favourite pitch line, Harjai’s job now is to make sure Rusk Media’s brand partnerships do more than just sound good on a deck, and on his track record, he has spent a decade and a half proving he can make ad sales numbers move.