MAM
Bates CHI & Partners strengthens Bangalore ops with two news hires
MUMBAI: Bates CHI & Partners, a joint venture between Bates and CHI & Partners formed this month, has strengthened its Bangalore operations by roping in two creative directors, Mukund Sharma and Devesh Desai.
Mukund and Devesh will spearhead the creative teams of Bangalore as executive creative director and senior creative director respectively and will focus on creating and strategizing innovative campaigns reflecting the ‘changengage’ philosophy.
Both will report to Sagar Mahabaleshwarkar, the national creative director of Bates India.
CHI & Partners GM and Bangalore Head K Vasantha commented, “Our Bangalore office has been one of the most strongest performing branches for the agency. We are growing at a rapid pace, gaining good traction overall on the business as well as the creative front. Mukund and Devesh, are both young, energetic and raring to go with fresh ideas, and I am excited to welcome them onboard as a part of the process to strengthen the Bangalore team at bates CHI & Partners.”
Mukund Sharma has close to two decades of experience, including stints at JWT and Ogilvy. He joins Bates from Rediffusion Y&R, where he was creative head of the Bangalore office. At Rediffusion, he was associated with the launch of Arrow New York, Signature and Reliance Jewels, among others. He has worked on a diverse mix of categories including beer (Kingfisher, Foster’s), apparel (Levi’s, Van Heusen, Arrow) and IT (IBM).
Devesh has had 20 years of experience in advertising stints at SSCB Lintas, Contract advertising, Everest Brand solutions, etc and is most known for his contribution to Anti-smoking poster that saw nominations at Cannes in 2001.
Commenting on the new hires, Bates CHI & Partners India CEO Sanjay Thapar said, “Bates CHI & Partners in India continues to grow at a good pace with some new appointments, new partnerships and client wins. Mukund and Devesh‘s appointment is a key step in strengthening our commitment to deliver big and bold creative ideas that solve a client/brand‘s business problems. Bangalore is an important market for us and given their expertise and well-proven track record, I am confident that both Mukund and Devesh will help take our work and relationships to the next level of creativity.”
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.
