MAM
Draftfcb Ulka appoints Menaka Menon as head strategic planning
MUMBAI: Menaka Menon joins Draftfcb Ulka as head strategic planning at its Bengaluru office. She has over 13 years experience in advertising and media. Her professional interests include new media, understanding youth consumer and their buying behaviour.
Speaking on her appointment, vice president Dennis Koshy said, “Menaka brings valuable experience across categories to Draftfcb Ulka. Having started her career with us, she is familiar with the organisation and I am sure she will add significant value to our clients here.”
An alumnus of MICA, Menaka started her career at the then FCB Ulka, as part of its Star One programme. She then moved to JWT where she spent over seven years, before moving on to assignments with Big 92.7 FM, UTV New Media and MTV.
uring the course of her career, Menaka has worked on several big brands such as Amul, Knorr, Levi‘s, Kotak, Diageo and Star across Mumbai and Bangalore.
On her second stint at Draftfcb Ulka, Menaka observed, “Draftfcb Ulka is known for the strategic contribution it provides to client businesses. I started my career here and I am really excited about the opportunity to come back. Bangalore office has a very good portfolio of clients and brands, and I look forward to partnering them.”
Draftfcb Ulka COO Nitin Karkare felt that, “Bangalore is a critical operation for us with prestigious brands like Sunfeast, Minto, Candyman, Santoor, Chandrika in our portfolio. Menaka is part of our Star One program and we are delighted to have her back on board. I am sure she will add a lot of value to the business with her rich experience across categories”
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.
