MAM
Ajit Varghese heads back to Madison as partner and CEO
MUMBAI: Ajit Varghese is set to return to the world of advertising, taking the reins at Sam Balsara’s Madison as partner and chief executive officer. The move marks a homecoming for Varghese, who cut his teeth at the agency before a globe-spanning career across media and tech.
Varghese had only recently been chief revenue officer at Jiostar, the Reliance–Disney joint venture, a role he held for seven months. Before that he led ad sales for the Walt Disney Company in India (2023–24) and served as chief commercial officer at ShareChat and Moj (2020–22), where he drove a 7x revenue surge and helped turbocharge growth in Bharat-focused social media and short video.
His longest stint was at WPP, where he rose from managing director of Maxus South Asia to global president of Wavemaker, overseeing 3,000 staff across 50 markets. Along the way, he delivered double-digit bottom-line growth, launched new digital and data-driven practices, and notched a string of industry awards.
Varghese began his career at Madison in 1999, climbing to chief operating officer before leaving in 2006. Back then, he helped Coca-Cola triple its media budget in India and added marquee clients such as McDonald’s, Asian Paints, and Axis Bank.
His return signals Madison’s intent to sharpen its edge in a market that is once again in flux.
MAM
‘You packed my parachute’: Avinash Kaul’s farewell salutes Network18’s unsung thousands
The outgoing chief’s LinkedIn post skips the boardroom tributes and goes straight to the security guards, drivers and office boys who kept the machine running
MUMBAI: Most farewell posts by senior media executives follow a familiar script: gratitude to leadership, a nod to the team, a hint of what lies ahead. Avinash Kaul’s is not that post.
Writing on LinkedIn on his last day at Network18 Media & Investments, where he spent nearly 12 years rising to chief executive, Kaul bypassed the boardroom entirely and directed his most heartfelt words at the people furthest from it: the security guard who greeted him before the building was fully awake, the fleet staff who drove him to airports at ungodly hours, the office assistants, the housekeeping teams, and the administrators who, as he put it, “held ten thousand invisible threads so the rest of us could look organised.”
“You packed my parachute,” he wrote. “Every day. Without fanfare, recognition, or ever asking for it.”
It was a striking note from a man who leaves behind a considerable operational record. Kaul joined Network18 managing three channels and exits with responsibility for 20, alongside a publishing business, a growing connected television footprint, and what he says is the highest revenue and highest channel share in the group’s history. He was quick to deflect the credit. “Not because of me. Because of 4,000 people who showed up, every day, in every department, across the country.”
To content teams across India, he issued a reminder that carries some weight given the pressures Indian news media currently faces. “Keep being custodians of trust for 700 million people. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.”
To colleagues in revenue and ratings who found him relentless and hard to satisfy, he was unapologetic but generous. “There was never a single moment of ill intent in my heart. Everything I pushed you towards came from one belief – that you were stronger than you knew, and I was not willing to let you settle for less than your real capability.” Those who believed him, he said, flew. Those who did not taught him to be a better communicator. He was grateful to both.
On what comes next, he offered a hint wrapped in metaphor. Something is being built, he said, prepared for “the way you pack a bag before a long climb. Not out of restlessness. Out of readiness.”
In a media landscape that rarely pauses to acknowledge the people who keep the lights on, it was, at the very least, a different kind of goodbye.
