MAM
IDfy banks on Malcolm Gomes to drive trust at scale in digital economy
MUMBAI: Trust issues? Not on Malcolm Gomes’ watch. Idfy, Asia’s leading identity verification platform, has brought on board Malcolm Gomes as its new chief operating officer, betting big on his two-decade-long expertise in strategy and transformation to power its next phase of growth. In his new role, Gomes will lead Idfy’s Trust and Privacy Platform ‘Privy’, oversee global operations, and spearhead industry-specific propositions as part of the company’s mission to eliminate fraud and scale trust in a fast-growing digital economy.
A former Partner at McKinsey & Co., Gomes has spent the last 17 years advising financial services clients across India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. His expertise spans digital transformation, AI-led service operations, customer experience, and business-building all of which align seamlessly with Idfy’s ambition to cement itself as the go-to platform for trust-based digital interactions.
IDfy CEO Ashok Hariharan said, “We are thrilled to welcome Malcolm to the Idfy leadership team. His deep experience in strategy and driving transformation across markets is a perfect match for IDfy’s mission of enabling trust atscale. Malcolm’s strategic vision and operational expertise will be instrumental as we expand our product suite, strengthen our propositions, and scale globally. I look forward to partnering with him as we continue to raise the bar for innovation and impact in this space.”
Malcolm sharing his excitement about joining Idfy said, “Trust is the fundamental currency of the ever-increasing, transacting world around us as increasingly more people and businesses get formalized; frequency of interactions and transactions increase driven by rising consumption; and interaction touchpoints multiply e.g., AI bots, Home delivery; the need to ensure trust grows manifold. Having worked with multiple institutions on their Board and CEO agendas over several years, I am hugely excited about how IDfy’s current and future ‘Trust’ offerings – can make a significant difference for customers and organisations.”
With Gomes stepping into this crucial role, Idfy is doubling down on its commitment to helping businesses confidently engage with customers, verify identities, and mitigate risk all without compromising user experience.
As trust becomes the bedrock of the digital economy, Idfy’s bet on Gomes could be the game-changer that takes the company from a powerful enabler to a category-defining force.
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.
