MAM
DDB MudraMax ropes in Kavita Sadana as group account director
MUMBAI: DDB MudraMax has appointed Kavita Sadana as group account director. She will be spearheading DDB MudraMax’s Ahmedabad operations and businesses including experiential, media, outdoor and retail.
Sadana said, “Ahmedabad and Gujarat contain clients, who are mostly entrepreneurs and owners. They prefer a single window solution from their partner agency. Hence, offering all the four services under single identity will be our biggest strength. This market operates on a lot of trust and DDB MudraMax enjoys the finest reputation here. With this combined advantage, we can surely look at excellent business volumes and putting DDB MudraMax Ahmedabad as a strong player on the national map. I am very proud to be associated with the agency and I look forward to working under the leadership of Sathyamurthy and Mandeep.”
Sadana joins DDB MudraMax with over two decades of experience in the marketing communications fraternity. She has worked across platforms and sectors with organisations from media publishing, entertainment and advertising functions. Her experience includes working at strong and innovative organisations like Asian Age, Radio City, Amagi Media Labs, Fun Multiplex and Freihert Mydia to name a few.
DDB MudraMax president and head Mandeep Malhotra said, “It’s great to have Kavita on board. Other than her experience, she brings a lot of joy and pride in working with great perseverance and professionalism. We are looking forward to her contribution in making Ahmedabad office a rocking and self-sustaining one.”
DDB MudraMax-Media president Sathyamurthy Namakkal added, “She is an excellent addition to the team and fortifies our team in the Gujarat market.”
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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.
