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Honasa Consumer appoints Anuja Mishra as CMO
MUMBAI: Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd. (HCPL), parent company of Mamaearth, and The Derma Co., a fast-growing House of Brands for personal care, appointed Anuja Mishra as chief marketing officer. In her new capacity, Mishra will oversee the marketing strategy for Honasa Consumer group brands – Mamaearth, The Derma Co., and Bblunt.
Mishra will be taking the baton from Sambit Dash, who has been elevated to head Brand Factory Team where he will be responsible for crafting, launching, and building new brands business for Honasa. She will be based out of the Honasa Consumer head office in Gurgaon.
Mishra brings over 17 years of experience across marketing and sales, having led brand management, innovation strategy and sales across three blue-chip FMCG organisations and some of the popular brands. As the CMO of Honasa Consumer, she will be responsible for accelerating the brand’s awareness and growth across the D2C ecosystem.
Speaking on her role, Anuja Mishra said, “I am absolutely thrilled and honored to join Honasa Consumer in its exciting journey of becoming a powerful house of brands. Honasa has proven to be a trailblazer across the D2C landscape, and I have tremendous respect for the organization’s ability to innovate disruptively and meaningfully. I look forward to joining this talented team and contributing to the growth mission.”
Commenting on the onboarding, Honasa Consumer co-founder and CEO Varun Alagh said, “Honasa has emerged as the fastest growing D2C brand and being a digital first brand, it is critical to constantly innovate and stay ahead of others in this excessively dynamic digital ecosystem. Anuja comes with extensive experience in managing millennial brands and she joins us at a time when the group has attained a great milestone with her expertise, she will elevate and support the strategy to the next one. We are excited to have a seasoned professional like her on board and look forward to growing the organisation with her.”
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Paramount set to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in $81 billion deal
Shareholders back merger, combined entity could reshape streaming and studios.
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… consolidation, Hollywood’s latest blockbuster might be happening off-screen. Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery have voted in favour of selling the company to Paramount in a deal valued at $81 billion rising to nearly $111 billion including debt setting the stage for one of the biggest shake-ups in modern media. The proposed merger, still subject to regulatory approvals, would bring together a vast portfolio spanning HBO Max, CNN, and franchises such as Harry Potter under the same umbrella as Paramount’s own heavyweights, including Top Gun and CBS.
At the heart of the deal is streaming scale. Executives have indicated plans to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single platform, potentially creating a stronger challenger to giants like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video. Current market data suggests HBO Max holds around 12 per cent of US on-demand subscriptions, compared to Paramount+’s 3 per cent, together still trailing Netflix’s 19 per cent and Disney’s combined 27 per cent via Disney+ and Hulu.
Paramount CEO David Ellison has signalled that while platforms may merge, HBO’s creative identity will remain intact, stating the brand should “stay HBO” even within a broader ecosystem.
Beyond streaming, the deal would redraw the map for film production. Combining two of Hollywood’s oldest studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., the new entity aims to scale output to over 30 films annually, while maintaining a 45-day theatrical window. Warner Bros. currently commands around 21 per cent of the US box office, compared to Paramount’s 6 per cent, underscoring the strategic weight of the acquisition.
But scale comes with scrutiny. Critics warn that fewer players could mean reduced consumer choice, rising subscription costs, and potential job cuts as the combined company looks to streamline overlapping operations while managing billions in debt.
The news business, too, faces a reset. CNN would join forces at least structurally with Paramount-owned CBS, raising questions about editorial independence and positioning. The merger has already drawn political attention in the United States, particularly given perceived ties between the Ellison family and Donald Trump, though the company maintains that newsroom autonomy will be preserved.
If approved, the deal would mark another milestone in Hollywood’s consolidation wave shrinking the industry’s traditional “big six” studios to a “big four”, with Paramount joining Disney, Universal, and Sony at the top table.
In an industry built on storytelling, this merger may well become its most consequential plot twist yet.
