Shikha Raina joins CNBC-TV18 as senior director—branded content & curated partnerships

MUMBAI: Shikha Raina has come home. Fourteen years after she first walked into a CNBC-TV18 newsroom as a correspondent, she has walked back in, this time as west head, senior director, branded content & strategic partnerships. The symmetry is almost too neat, and that is precisely what makes it worth writing about.

Raina’s career reads like a masterclass in reinvention. She began in 2011 as a correspondent at CNBC-TV18, the sort of entry point that usually locks people into journalism for life. It did not. By 2014 she had pivoted hard into marketing communications, then spent two and a half years as a centurion ambassador with American Express, learning the fine art of courting India’s wealthiest clientele. From there it was straight into television ad sales, first at Zee Entertainment Enterprises as part of ad sales and marketing, then at Times Network as region head for sales and brand innovation, a role she held for three solid years.

The real transformation, though, came after 2022. At IndiaDotcom Digital, formerly Zee Digital, she took charge as south head for brand innovation and activity, and that is where branded content stopped being a side hustle and became her calling card. Republic World scooped her up in 2023, and she spent close to three years there rising from south head to west head of branded content and innovation, stitching together partnerships across two of India’s most competitive media markets.

Now the circle closes. CNBC-TV18 gets back a colleague who left as a reporter and returns as a strategist fluent in both storytelling and commerce, exactly the hybrid skill set that branded content demands in a fragmented, attention-starved media landscape. On LinkedIn, Raina called the move a step taken with, in her words, immense gratitude and excitement.

For a channel jostling for ad dollars against digital-first upstarts, hiring someone who has sold, activated and produced her way across Zee, Times Network and Republic World is a shrewd bit of business. Whether she can translate two decades of relationship capital into fresh revenue for CNBC-TV18’s west region remains to be seen, but few would bet against her.