MAM
CredAvenue onboards Abhishek Mehrotra as its CHRO
Mumbai: Homegrown debt markets platform CredAvenue has announced the onboarding of Abhishek Mehrotra as chief human resource officer (CHRO).
In this role, Mehrotra will be responsible for leading the company’s human resource function, thereby bolstering CredAvenue’s people culture while cultivating an innovative, growth-driven environment.
“For us, this is a mission-critical role. Our business is all about people. Hence, we have prioritised HR as one of the most critical and core business functions since our initial days of building a people-centred, best-in-class culture,” said CredAvenue founder and CEO Gaurav Kumar. “We are passionate about creating a caring, collaborative, and shared work atmosphere that results in happier employees. While we have been cultivating a diverse, agile, transparent, and enthusiastic work culture, we need to have an HR leader with nuanced understanding and a proven track record of leading our people initiatives to the next phase.”
“Abhishek will channelise our collective goals and individual capabilities by bringing the best global HR practices and innovations to keep CredAvenue a people-first organisation. Through his broad experience, Abhishek will guide us to create a culture where each individual will thrive. Our people are our most valuable asset,” he further said.
Mehrotra has over two decades of experience in human resources, including establishing and improving HR and organisational structures at leading tech, start-up, and telecom companies. He has enabled employee success in high-end R&D, complex managed services, and social media domains across Western and Eastern work cultures with organisations such as IBM, Nokia, Huawei, and Bytedance.
In his last leadership assignment with Bytedance, he scaled the people management function at TikTok in the SEA markets while also guiding the India team through challenging times.
“CredAvenue is one of the rare start-ups that has followed the people-first philosophy from inception, and that was very evident in the founder’s thinking from the very first time we interacted,” commented Abhishek Mehrotra. “I am looking forward to building the people’s organisation of tomorrow and introducing unique practices in learning and development, mental wellness, diversity and inclusion, and upskilling initiatives for enhancing the overall employee experience.”
CredAvenue plans to increase its headcount from 400 to 700 people in the coming fiscal year. It is hiring talent from various tech and management areas at all levels, including freshers, mid-level, and senior-level positions, said the statement.
MAM
Paramount set to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in $81 billion deal
Shareholders back merger, combined entity could reshape streaming and studios.
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… consolidation, Hollywood’s latest blockbuster might be happening off-screen. Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery have voted in favour of selling the company to Paramount in a deal valued at $81 billion rising to nearly $111 billion including debt setting the stage for one of the biggest shake-ups in modern media. The proposed merger, still subject to regulatory approvals, would bring together a vast portfolio spanning HBO Max, CNN, and franchises such as Harry Potter under the same umbrella as Paramount’s own heavyweights, including Top Gun and CBS.
At the heart of the deal is streaming scale. Executives have indicated plans to combine HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single platform, potentially creating a stronger challenger to giants like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video. Current market data suggests HBO Max holds around 12 per cent of US on-demand subscriptions, compared to Paramount+’s 3 per cent, together still trailing Netflix’s 19 per cent and Disney’s combined 27 per cent via Disney+ and Hulu.
Paramount CEO David Ellison has signalled that while platforms may merge, HBO’s creative identity will remain intact, stating the brand should “stay HBO” even within a broader ecosystem.
Beyond streaming, the deal would redraw the map for film production. Combining two of Hollywood’s oldest studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., the new entity aims to scale output to over 30 films annually, while maintaining a 45-day theatrical window. Warner Bros. currently commands around 21 per cent of the US box office, compared to Paramount’s 6 per cent, underscoring the strategic weight of the acquisition.
But scale comes with scrutiny. Critics warn that fewer players could mean reduced consumer choice, rising subscription costs, and potential job cuts as the combined company looks to streamline overlapping operations while managing billions in debt.
The news business, too, faces a reset. CNN would join forces at least structurally with Paramount-owned CBS, raising questions about editorial independence and positioning. The merger has already drawn political attention in the United States, particularly given perceived ties between the Ellison family and Donald Trump, though the company maintains that newsroom autonomy will be preserved.
If approved, the deal would mark another milestone in Hollywood’s consolidation wave shrinking the industry’s traditional “big six” studios to a “big four”, with Paramount joining Disney, Universal, and Sony at the top table.
In an industry built on storytelling, this merger may well become its most consequential plot twist yet.
