MAM
FCB/SIX India appoints Gagan Prabhakar as VP – CX operations and Arun Iyer as Sr. director – CRM
Mumbai: FCB/SIX India has appointed Gagan Prabhakar and Arun Iyer as VP – CX Operations and Sr. Director – CRM, respectively.
In his new role at the agency, Gagan will lead CRM, web strategy, and content verticals.
Arun, on the other hand, will be responsible for leading the development and implementation of personalisation, and data-backed strategies, and managing the CRM team for delivering omnichannel customer experiences for FCB/SIX India’s clients.
Gagan moved from Dhani Stocks, where he was the general manager of marketing, whereas Arun was the lead strategy consultant at Mirum India.
With over 17 years of experience, Gagan has also worked with HDFC Bank, Indiabulls Group and most recently Dhani Stocks. Arun comes with over a decade of experience and has been associated with companies like Mirum India and The Walt Disney Company.
Speaking on the new hires, FCB/SIX India, CBO Ankit Banga said, “At FCB/SIX India, we understand the power that creativity, data, and technology together possess in delivering an exceptional customer experience. The inclusion of Gagan and Arun strengthens our CX division, enriching it with their data proficiency and extensive experience in large-scale CRM campaigns across finance, healthcare, and the QSR sectors. Additionally, we’re enhancing our Salesforce capabilities to better serve a significant portion of our clientele.”
FCB Kinnect and FCB/SIX India CEO Rohan Mehta added, “Welcoming Gagan and Arun aboard will synergise creativity and technology, bringing exceptional customer experiences (CX) across all our client offerings, to further strengthen our focus on using ‘creativity as an economic multiplier’.”
FCB/SIX India VP – CX Operations Gagan Prabhakar said, “I’m thrilled to be part of FCB/SIX India and FCB Kinnect and I believe in the company’s philosophy of Growth, Glory, and Guts. I’m confident that by leveraging a data-centric approach and our innovative solutions across web verticals, we can help our clients achieve significant growth in the digital landscape.”
FCB/SIX India Sr. director – CRM Arun Iyer said, “I’m all geared up to join FCB/SIX India and leverage my passion for data-driven strategies, to build meaningful customer relationships and drive business results. Given the agency’s culture of innovation, I look forward to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, ensuring we continue to set new benchmarks for excellence in connecting brands with their audiences in the most impactful ways.”
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.
