MAM
Bombay Shaving Company appoints Varun Gupta as senior vice president – growth
MUMBAI: Personal care brand, Bombay Shaving Company has appointed Varun Gupta as senior vice president – growth. With this appointment, the Delhi based grooming and hair removal brand further strengthens its executive leadership to deliver on its mission of “of reaching two crore bathrooms, with five products per bathroom, creating ten minutes of happiness”, in the next 12-16 quarters, the company said in a statement.
The Company will rely on Gupta’s D2C-to-Omnichannel expertise to stitch together consumer experiences with solid, long-term business outcomes going forward, as it aims to become IPO ready soon.
Gupta was the founding member of ‘Too Yumm!’ & ‘The Gift Studio’ during his time at the RP – Sanjiv Goenka Group, having led the launch network for their FMCG business with ‘Too Yumm!’. He has also had stints at Unilever and Pepsico.
“Varun brings a wonderful blend of technology understanding, customer centricity, entrepreneurial zeal and large business pedigree – qualities that will take Bombay Shaving Company into the future. Right through his career, he has demonstrated a remarkable ability to navigate complexity and uncertainty to shape sustainably profitable businesses, making him a truly valuable addition for us,” Bombay Shaving Company founder & CEO Shantanu Deshpande said.
“Direct to Consumer space gives an opportunity to engage with past and future audiences in ways that are richer and non-transactional. Online channels, on the other hand, address customers with immediate intent. With unconventional channels like Quick Commerce taking rapid strides, the opportunities are immense. I look forward to building on the great work done by the team across D2C and other channels; and make BSC’s vision in the country a reality!” Varun Gupta said on his appointment.
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.
