Brands
Blue Star reshuffles board as Sam Balsara exits, new leadership steps up
MUMBAI: Blue Star is shaking up its boardroom quietly, decisively, and with an eye firmly on the next phase of growth. One of India’s most recognisable corporate brands is refreshing its leadership bench as a marketing legend exits, a seasoned industrialist enters, and the executive engine gets more firepower .
Sam Balsara, chairman of Madison World and one of Indian advertising’s most influential figures, will retire as independent director on January 31 after completing two consecutive terms. Having joined the board in June 2017 and been reappointed in 2022, Balsara leaves at 75, closing a chapter defined by sharp brand thinking and a steady hand on consumer strategy. As chairman of the nomination and remuneration committee, his influence extended deep into leadership development and succession planning, shaping Blue Star’s next generation of decision-makers .
Stepping into the independent director role is M S Unnikrishnan, appointed for a five-year term with effect from January 29. With more than four decades of experience, Unnikrishnan currently heads the IITB–Monash Research Academy and previously ran Thermax group as managing director, steering the engineering major across global energy and environment businesses. His boardroom résumé already includes KEC International, Kirloskar Brothers, Greaves Cotton and Livguard Energy Technologies, alongside trusteeships at Akshayapatra and Jehangir Hospital, Pune. A mechanical engineering graduate from VNIT Nagpur with an advanced management programme from Harvard Business School, Unnikrishnan brings operational heft and global exposure to Blue Star’s board .
Continuity, however, remains central. B Thiagarajan has been reappointed managing director for a further term from April 1, 2026, through May 24, 2027—one day short of his 70th birthday. A Blue Star lifer since 1998, Thiagarajan has clocked more than four decades across B2B and B2C businesses, rising from board member in 2013 to joint managing director in 2016 and managing director in 2019. An electrical and electronics engineer from Madurai University with a senior executive programme from London Business School, he continues to play a prominent role in industry bodies including the CII national council, the Indian Green Building Council and the CII Green Cooling Council .
The executive bench is also getting younger muscle. Mohit Sud has been elevated as executive director, unitary cooling products, for a five-year term starting April 1, 2026. Sud joined Blue Star in March 2025 as group president, overseeing room air conditioners and commercial refrigeration with end-to-end responsibility spanning sales, marketing, R&D, manufacturing and supply chain. A mechanical engineer with an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur, Sud spent over two decades at Hindustan Unilever, leading sales and marketing across home care and beauty and wellbeing categories, most recently driving premium retail distribution .
Vir S Advani, chairman and managing director, framed the changes as both an inflection point and a vote of confidence. He credited Balsara with helping sharpen the brand’s relevance among younger consumers and deeper-tier markets, noting that his marketing insights helped Blue Star gain market share year after year. Unnikrishnan, Advani said, adds proven leadership across engineering products and international markets, while Thiagarajan’s extension will accelerate strategic programmes in growth, R&D and manufacturing and ensure a seamless leadership transition. On Sud, Advani was bluntly bullish, saying the company has been grooming him for board-level responsibility and that his consumer-market experience will help lift market share and profitability in unitary cooling products .
At 82 years old, Blue Star is signalling that longevity does not mean inertia. With one era ending and another being carefully engineered, the company is betting that fresh thinking, steady leadership and sharper execution will keep it cool—and competitive—when the heat is on.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
