MAM
Digital video veteran jumps ship to Spanish adtech darling
NEW DELHI: Shikha Singh, the executive who helped Dailymotion crack the notoriously difficult Indian market, has jumped ship to join Marfeel, a Spanish adtech firm, as sales director for Asia-Pacific. The move marks another coup for European technology companies seeking to expand their footprint across the region’s fragmented digital landscape.
Singh’s departure from Dailymotion, where she spent over seven years building the French video platform’s Indian operations, signals the intense competition for experienced hands in the publisher technology space. At Marfeel, she will spearhead the Barcelona-based company’s push into markets where digital advertising spending continues to surge despite global economic headwinds.
The appointment comes as Marfeel, which helps publishers optimise their websites for better user engagement and revenue, looks to capitalise on the growing demand for sophisticated content management tools across Asia. The company’s technology promises to boost page views and advertising income—a compelling proposition for cash-strapped media organisations grappling with declining print revenues.
Singh’s track record suggests Marfeel has chosen wisely. During her tenure as country manager for India at Dailymotion, she delivered what she describes as “phenomenal growth” of 120 per cent over two years whilst serving as sales director for supply and enterprise sales. Her knack for “executing complex conversations with C-level people” and managing partnerships across the chaotic Indian media ecosystem made her a valuable asset for Vivendi-owned Dailymotion.
Before her Dailymotion stint, Singh cut her teeth at some of India’s most prominent digital media companies. She managed partnerships at Times Internet, the digital arm of India’s largest newspaper group, and worked on business development for Dainik Bhaskar Group, one of the country’s biggest Hindi-language publishers. Earlier roles at adtech firms LocoVida and Kaumarc Media, plus a brief entrepreneurial venture with JobsandResults.com, rounded out her experience in the rough-and-tumble world of Indian digital media.
The move reflects broader trends in the global adtech industry, where European companies are increasingly challenging American dominance in Asia-Pacific markets. Spanish firms, in particular, have been aggressive in their expansion, leveraging their experience in similarly fragmented European markets to tackle the complexities of Asian publishing.
For Marfeel, Singh’s appointment represents a bet that the company can replicate its European success in markets where publishers are desperately seeking new revenue streams. Her deep understanding of the SaaS sales model and ability to navigate the relationship-heavy Indian business culture could prove crucial as the company attempts to win over sceptical Asian publishers.
The timing appears fortuitous. Digital advertising spending across Asia-Pacific is expected to continue growing, driven by rising smartphone penetration and increasingly sophisticated programmatic advertising tools. Publishers who can demonstrate measurable improvements in user engagement and revenue generation are well-positioned to capture a larger share of advertisers’ budgets.
Whether Singh can work the same magic for Marfeel that she did for Dailymotion remains to be seen. But her appointment signals that the battle for Asia-Pacific’s publisher technology market is heating up—and European companies are not content to let their American rivals have all the fun.
MAM
‘You packed my parachute’: Avinash Kaul’s farewell salutes Network18’s unsung thousands
The outgoing chief’s LinkedIn post skips the boardroom tributes and goes straight to the security guards, drivers and office boys who kept the machine running
MUMBAI: Most farewell posts by senior media executives follow a familiar script: gratitude to leadership, a nod to the team, a hint of what lies ahead. Avinash Kaul’s is not that post.
Writing on LinkedIn on his last day at Network18 Media & Investments, where he spent nearly 12 years rising to chief executive, Kaul bypassed the boardroom entirely and directed his most heartfelt words at the people furthest from it: the security guard who greeted him before the building was fully awake, the fleet staff who drove him to airports at ungodly hours, the office assistants, the housekeeping teams, and the administrators who, as he put it, “held ten thousand invisible threads so the rest of us could look organised.”
“You packed my parachute,” he wrote. “Every day. Without fanfare, recognition, or ever asking for it.”
It was a striking note from a man who leaves behind a considerable operational record. Kaul joined Network18 managing three channels and exits with responsibility for 20, alongside a publishing business, a growing connected television footprint, and what he says is the highest revenue and highest channel share in the group’s history. He was quick to deflect the credit. “Not because of me. Because of 4,000 people who showed up, every day, in every department, across the country.”
To content teams across India, he issued a reminder that carries some weight given the pressures Indian news media currently faces. “Keep being custodians of trust for 700 million people. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.”
To colleagues in revenue and ratings who found him relentless and hard to satisfy, he was unapologetic but generous. “There was never a single moment of ill intent in my heart. Everything I pushed you towards came from one belief – that you were stronger than you knew, and I was not willing to let you settle for less than your real capability.” Those who believed him, he said, flew. Those who did not taught him to be a better communicator. He was grateful to both.
On what comes next, he offered a hint wrapped in metaphor. Something is being built, he said, prepared for “the way you pack a bag before a long climb. Not out of restlessness. Out of readiness.”
In a media landscape that rarely pauses to acknowledge the people who keep the lights on, it was, at the very least, a different kind of goodbye.
