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Re-Invent 2020: knowledge, inspiration & experience
MUMBAI: The esteemed OTT & Digital Marketing Innovation Awards in association with Promax is one proud bunch at this hour. After hosting a successful event today at Taj Santacruz in the presence of speakers & panelists, a room full of content creators, digital experts, innovators, marketing professionals, filmmakers and the who’s who from the Indian OTT & digital industry, the event did full justice to its theme for the year – ‘Digital Re-Invent 2020’.
The conference kick-started with a welcome message from the event’s conference chair, Rajiv Bakshi, CEO of Reliance Big Synergy Media.
Insightful and inspirational panel sessions followed through including ‘Keynote Mastermind’, hosted by ZEE5’s CEO Tarun Katial, who said ‘At every juncture in this industry the opportunity is great but also the responsibility is humungous. How quickly people turn to digital media depends on all of us. Before creating content, we need to understand the market, the consumer, the potential and much more’.
‘OTT Visionaries – Re-Invent 2020’ led by Raj Nayak, Director & MD of House of Cheer Network brought about interesting discussions on monetizing the platforms and their brand USP. The panel was
attended by an Karan Bedi, CEO of MX Player, Kranti Gada, COO of Shemaroo Entertainment Limited, Gourav Rakshit, COO of Viacom18 Digital Ventures and Vishnu Mohta, Co-Founder of hoichoi. This session brimmed with substance and imagination in and was remarkably insightful. The next session, ‘The Emerging Content Opportunities’ kept everyone engaged with an exemplary line- up of programming heads and content savants representing the best OTT brands in the country. The panelists in this fiery session included Monika Shergill, Director of International Originals at Netflix India, Aparna Acharekar, Programming Head at ZEE5, Gautam Talwar, Chief Content Officer at MX Player, Aparna Purohit, Head of India Originals at Amazon Prime Video and Saugata Mukherjee, Head of Original Content on Sony Liv. The candid talk ‘Break the Rules’ with director duo Raj & DK hosted by VJ Anusha Dandekar was particularly popular amongst the crowd and received a great response. There was also a power- packed case study led session ‘Top Re-Invent Brand Strategies Showcase’ showcasing brand success stories of the leaders of the digital industry- Facebook, YouTube and Tik Tok presented by Prashant Sharma, Satya Raghavan and Ahteram Uddin respectively.
The cutting-edge discussions were followed by the much-awaited OTT & Digital Marketing Innovation Awards. Running for the first time this year, the awards acknowledged and celebrated this year’s greatest and the most quality-driven teams in the OTT & digital landscape. Netflix and Hotstar were the biggest champions of the evening with a tie at 5 trophies each. Close behind were Amazon Prime Video and ZEE5 who won the popular “Platform of the Year”. While Amazon Prime Video’s ‘The Family Man’ swept the award for the ‘Best Web Series National’, ‘Queen’ from MX Player was the gold winner in the ‘Best Web Series Regional’ category. Other notable winners included Nawazuddin Siddique as the ‘Best Male Lead of The Year’ for Sacred Games, Shefali Shah as the ‘Best Female Lead of The Year’ for Delhi Crime,, Hotstar for the ‘Best Content Marketing by a Brand on a Digital Platform’ for Game of Thrones and Malishka, who won a gold for ‘Best Digital Influencer of The Year’.
Speaking about the enormous success of the event, Rajika Mittra, Country Head, India, Hong Kong and the Philippines of Promax India, said, “We take great pride in setting a standard for innovation and creativity in the industry. This event is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of content creators and storytellers in the OTT & digital industry across the nation. We are ecstatic we were able to radiate the sheer-hard work and dedication of the deserving winners’.
In their debut year this season, OTT & Digital Innovation Awards gave out 16 golds and 16 silvers.
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Gurpreet Singh named President of DishTV Alumni Network
Former Dish TV executive to lead community building and collaboration.
MUMBAI: Back to the dish, but this time it’s about connections, not channels Gurpreet Singh is returning to familiar territory with a new mandate that swaps subscribers for relationships. Singh has been appointed President of the DishTV Alumni Network, a move aimed at strengthening ties among former employees and building a more engaged professional community around the Dish TV ecosystem. The initiative reflects a growing trend among large organisations to formalise alumni networks as platforms for collaboration, mentorship and business opportunities.
The appointment draws on Singh’s deep-rooted history with Dish TV, where he held multiple leadership roles over nearly a decade. As National Business Head between June 2019 and September 2020, he oversaw profit and loss as well as operations, managing revenues of Rs 6,000 crore and leading a team of around 1,250 employees across the country. His tenure included working alongside two regional business heads and 16 circle heads, underscoring the scale of operations he handled.
Prior to that, Singh served as Executive Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue from 2016 to 2019, and earlier as Senior Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue. He also briefly led international operations as Country Head for Sri Lanka, further expanding his exposure across markets.
His broader career spans leadership roles across telecom and consumer businesses, including a stint as Chief Operating Officer at Bharti Airtel’s Malawi operations, senior leadership roles at Reliance Communications, and earlier positions at Hindustan Sanitaryware and Kodak India, where he spent over a decade.
In his new role, Singh is expected to focus on reconnecting former employees, fostering collaboration, and building a structured alumni ecosystem that leverages shared experience and industry networks. As companies increasingly recognise the long-term value of their extended workforce, the DishTV Alumni Network appears set to turn nostalgia into a strategic asset, one connection at a time.
