MAM
Dentsu Aegis Network appoints Harsha Joshi as EVP- group trading
MUMBAI: Dentsu Aegis Network has appointed Harsha Joshi as its executive VP- group trading. Joshi will report to Dentsu Aegis Network chairman and CEO south Asia Ashish Bhasin.
Joshi is an industry veteran who brings with her over 23 years of experience in media buying & planning, branded content and media audit and advisory.
She has been the head of media buying at Fulcrum (Mindshare), headed media buying at Madison Media for 12 years. She also served as CEO – media & international at Spatial Access Media Solutions and her last stint was at McKinsey, India as media advisory.
Bhasin said, “The remarkable growth that the Dentsu Aegis Network has had has resulted in our scale growing rapidly. To ensure our clients get the best global practices in the extremely important area of Trading, we decided to invest in a very senior resource. After evaluating several candidates, we were delighted to have Harsha join us. She brings with her unparalled experience in the area of Trading and we will use her expertise across the Dentsu Aegis Network. Trading is our strength and Harsha will help us maintain that edge.”
Sounding excited about her new assignment, Joshi added, “I am truly looking forward to this role. With three strong media agencies, Carat, Vizeum and Dentsu Media in our group, and with so many large local and global clients, I am sure that we will be able to add value to our clients like no other agency can. Their professional and transparent approach, backed by best-in-class people, global tools, learning and systems attracted me to join Dentsu Aegis Network, which is India’s fastest growing advertising & media network for the second year in a row.”
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.
