MAM
Havas Media India shakes up leadership ranks with bold new moves
MUMBAI: Havas Media India is mixing things up at the top, elevating a clutch of seasoned insiders in a bid to fuel its growth spurt and flex its media muscle.
Ramsai Panchapakesan, a media maven with 28 years under his belt, has been bumped up to president – investments & partnerships. Since joining the agency in July 2024, Ramsai has been steering the ship on integrated investment strategy and scaling up client alliances across the board.
Meanwhile, managing partner – investments & buying is now the new badge for Binu Thomas. A Havas veteran of nearly two decades, Binu’s got a sharp nose for investment strategy and a track record of wrangling performance-driven outcomes across sectors.
Also stepping into the limelight is Manish Sharma, who takes over as president – Arena India, the specialised arm under Havas Media Network India. Over the past nine years, Manish has built a reputation for crafting content-first client engagement strategies, driving growth for big-ticket names like Kia, Bumble, Realme, Zupee, and Kajaria Tiles.
Commenting on the development, Havas Media Network India CEO Mohit Joshi said, “Ramsai, Binu, and Manish have been instrumental in driving our investment and business strategy, unlocking consistent growth for our clients and the network. Their expertise, leadership, and commitment to innovation continue to shape the success story of Havas Media. I am confident that in their new roles, they will further accelerate our progress and deepen our market leadership.”
Havas Media India COO Uday Mohan added, “These well-deserved elevations reflect the strength and depth of our leadership team. Ramsai and Binu have been the backbone of our investment function, while Manish has led Arena India with great vision and execution. Their contributions embody the Havas ethos of Meaningful Media, and I look forward to collaborating closely with them as we steer the next phase of growth.”
The elevations are in line with Havas Media’s continued focus on empowering internal talent and scaling leadership across core and emerging verticals.
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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.
