MAM
Flash.co appoints Amit Verma as chief product and technology officer
Mumbai: Flash.co, the fast-growing consumer app building a unique shopping experience for online shoppers, is pleased to announce the appointment of Amit Verma as its chief product and technology officer (CPTO). This move comes as Flash.co accelerates its growth in India and prepares for an expansion into global markets starting this year.
Amit Verma is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and the former chief technology officer at Practo. He brings extensive leadership experience, having successfully led technology teams at Big Basket, Ola, Oracle, and Yahoo. His appointment at Flash.co is a significant step towards the company’s goal of transforming the shopping experience for the top 250 million shoppers worldwide.
Since its launch in April 2023, Flash.co has rapidly built up a user base of 600,000 plus users, achieving an annual run rate of tracking over 12 million orders across 2200 plus brands. Backed by Blume Ventures and Global Founders Capital, the company has secured over $12.5 million in funding, positioning itself for a highly anticipated US launch in the coming months. The platform aims to revolutionize customer shopping experiences with features like seamless shopping tracking, AI-powered spam-free inbox, in-depth spending analytics, personalized lifestyle rewards and more.
Speaking about joining Flash.co, Amit Verma, expressed his delight and added, “I am really excited to join the Flash.co team, drawn by the problem statements being solved & their global aspirations. My immediate focus would be to re-architect the existing systems for stability and scalability required for global expansion. I would focus on nurturing the culture of customer centricity, speed & innovation, creating next generation products for both customers and brands.”
Flash.co CEO Ranjith Boyanapalli expressed his excitement about Amit’s appointment and said, “We are thrilled to welcome Amit as our CPTO. He will be integral to the company’s commitment to delivering exceptional global products in the coming days. Flash.co is eager to witness its next growth chapter under his leadership and acumen.”
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.
