MAM
Ethos appoints Vijay Ratnam as India’s managing director
Mumbai: Ethos, the number one online life insurance provider in the U.S. today announces the appointment of Vijay Ratnam as the new India managing director. In this role, Vijay will lead the company’s organizational culture, strategic resource management and planning for growth and expansion in India.
Vijay has over three decades of experience in the tech and IT industry across leading companies in India and overseas. He has been deeply involved in mentoring talent and talent management, as well as collaborating across departments, all with an eye on keeping organizational processes efficient and effective.
Vijay spent more than a decade operating and managing in the tech sector across companies in the U.S. Prior to joining Ethos, Vijay held leadership positions at Cohesity, Dgraph Labs, ThoughtSpot, Citrix, NetScaler and Oracle among others.
Ethos CEO Peter Colis said, “Last year Ethos established its India footprint and launched a full-stack office in Bengaluru. We have onboarded a team of high-quality tech talent that is contributing to our overall product innovation, new product launches, and customer experience. The response has been remarkable, and we are excited to see the progress made so far.”
“Our plan is to continue to grow our world-class Engineering and Product teams in India by leveraging the incredible pool of technical talent available locally, and Vijay will be instrumental in helping us achieve this. Ethos India is a strong component of our global workforce, representing nearly all parts of our business. Together, we are poised to achieve remarkable milestones and contribute to Ethos’ continued success on the global stage.”
Ethos India managing director Vijay Ratnam said, “I am thrilled to join the team and embark on this exciting journey at Ethos India. What began as a modest team in 2022 has now evolved into a significant force. India hosts one of the world’s largest reservoirs of tech and analytics talent. Our strategic vision involves establishing a significant business delivery team in India and assembling a cadre of specialists. We aim to achieve our mission of making life insurance accessible and affordable for all, positively impacting the lives of millions.”
Ethos follows a technology-first approach that integrates complex decision flows with a radically simple consumer experience, to get high-quality insurance closer to its customers. In just a short time, the company has become the insurtech leader that continues to transform the life insurance space across the U.S. Headquartered in Austin, it has employees in key technology and startup hubs including Bengaluru, San Francisco, Seattle, Singapore and more.
With nearly 95 per cent instant approvals, Ethos has been growing at a significant rate and increasing its year-over-year momentum, and now aims to further expand its technology and product offerings by capitalising on the vast tech, IT, and data analytics talent pool available in India.
As an insurtech company, Ethos has secured significant funding from leading investors in the U.S. and continues to gain customer trust with its unique modern tech approach. Ethos was founded with the goal to simplify estate-related decisions and provide life insurance online in the U.S. Ethos has raised over $400 million from an all-star cast of investors, including – Softbank Vision Fund 2; Sequoia Capital; Accel; GV (formerly Google Ventures); General Catalyst; Jay-Z’s Roc Nation; and the investment vehicles of stars Will Smith and Robert Downey Jr. In 2022, Ethos acquired Tomorrow Ideas and was able to fully integrate its critical financial instruments such as legal wills and trusts, free for its insurance customers, into the Ethos platform.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
