MAM
Dheeraj Sinha is Leo Burnett South Asia chief strategy officer
MUMBAI: Leo Burnett announced the appointment of Dheeraj Sinha as chief strategy officer. Sinha will be based out of the agency’s Mumbai office and will be responsible for planning across South Asia.
Confirming the development, South Asia chief executive officer Saurabh Varma said, “We are really excited that Dheeraj is joining us at this critical juncture in our evolution as an agency. We have incredible momentum as a team and both Raj and I were in the hunt for a partner. We wanted someone who can join us in our crusade to change the communication narrative in India. With Dheeraj, we hope to get radical convergence around our purpose and radical divergence around how to get there.”
On his joining, Sinha commented, “There’s great energy around Leo Burnett in India, and I am looking forward to be a part of it and adding to the momentum. In my conversations with Saurabh and Raj, what stands out is their commitment to the product and culture, leading to growth, rather than the other way round. There’s also a serious ambition to create work that’s in line with how the world has changed. They have evidence of having done such work in the recent past. I see this as an opportunity to collaborate and build something that we can all be proud of.”
In a career spanning 17 years, Dheeraj has worked with McCann Erickson, Euro RSCG, Bates and Grey. In his last role, he led the strategic planning function for Grey in India, South & South East Asia.
Sinha has worked on brands and businesses across markets such as Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. He has spent time across categories on brands like Sensodyne, Indian Army, Britannia, 3M, ITC Juices, Maybank, Telekom Malaysia, Grameenphone, Reliance Mobile, Colgate, MasterCard, LG, DBS Bank, Tata AIA, TVS, Virgin Mobile, Max Bupa, Fiat, Reckitt Benckiser, Emirates, Dabur, Marico and CavinKare.
Dheeraj is the author of two books on the Indian consumer market: “India Reloaded – Inside the Resurgent Indian Consumer Market” and “Consumer India – Inside the Indian Mind and Wallet”.
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.
