MAM
Digitas India appoints Sonia Khurana as COO
MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe-owned digital agency, Digitas India has announced the appointment of Sonia Khurana as chief operating officer. She joins the agency from Ogilvy India where she was senior vice-president and head of customer engagement. She will report to Digitas India CEO Amaresh Godbole.
Commenting on her appointment, Godbole said, “Digitas India has been on the fast track for the last decade, and today we’re 450 plus experts partnering top-notch clients. To keep up with this growth trajectory, we need more leaders who are adept at solving business problems through modern marketing practices. Sonia is just that, a true T-shaped personality who has run digital businesses as well as capabilities. Further, she understands how to tackle the challenges of integration. It’s what we need to drive our next phase of growth as the premier connected marketing agency, and as a partner in Publicis Groupe’s Power of One Solutions."
A marketing old hand with experience of over two decades in key roles across prominent agencies in the advertising industry, Khurana has been instrumental in shaping up business and strategy for the agencies and has handled clients across retail, hospitality, telecom, technology, automotive, travel & tourism, and more. Some of the clients include Aditya Birla Group, Vodafone, IBM, BMW, Microsoft, Nokia, and Diageo.
Much of her professional life has been spent at Ogilvy India where she worked for almost a decade in its Bengaluru and Mumbai offices. While at Ogilvy, she was instrumental in setting up OgilvyOne (the digital unit of Ogilvy) in Bengaluru. She also conceptualised and created India's first retail social CRM program for Elle Fashionwear. Prior to Ogilvy, she was at Wunderman International as the India Lead for Nokia.
On her new role Khurana said, “I'm very excited to be part of a young, energetic team whose focus is at the nexus of creativity, data, technology and media. My goal is to partner with the team to chart the agency's next chapter and make it the agency of choice for clients looking to take a leap in their digital journey. On my first day at work, I saw the Publicis Groupe's Power of One strategy in action. It made me realize that I haven't just joined the agency brand but that I am part of the enriching Groupe ecosystem committed to delivering truly integrated, client-focused solutions. Three weeks in and I can already see what makes this place so special."
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
