Jio Studios appoints Tanu Banerjee as chief legal officer

MUMBAI: Law firm partners rarely walk away from a top-tier practice they built themselves. Tanu Banerjee just did, and the destination explains why. After more than five years at Khaitan & Co, where she joined as the firm’s first specialist technology, media and telecom partner in Mumbai, Banerjee has taken up the role of chief legal officer at Jio Studios, moving from advising the industry to sitting inside one of its biggest players.

The shift is less dramatic than it sounds. Media and entertainment has been Banerjee’s professional home turf for most of her career, and the move reads as a change of seat rather than a change of table. At Khaitan & Co, she built a top-tier practice from scratch and represented some of the most prominent individuals and corporate powerhouses in deals that have shaped the industry’s current landscape. Before that, she spent four years as a partner at IndusLaw in Bengaluru, three years as a senior associate at Wadia Ghandy & Co in Mumbai, three years in a similar role at DSK Legal, and began her career as legal counsel at Reliance ADAG between 2008 and 2010, a full circle of sorts given her new employer’s parentage.

Banerjee’s practice has sat squarely at the intersection of law, technology and creativity, advising content studios, OTT platforms, digital media businesses, film producers, music labels, talent, brands and tech innovators on everything from mergers and acquisitions, fundraises and strategic investments to joint ventures, content and intellectual property deals, branding collaborations, software licences, outsourcing contracts, SaaS agreements, cybersecurity and digital payment structures. She has also helped global and Indian clients set up and scale operations in India, giving her a cross-border fluency that few in-house legal teams can claim from day one.

The recognition has followed accordingly. Banerjee has been consistently ranked among India’s leading technology, media and telecom lawyers, with recent honours including a ranking from Chambers and Partners, leading partner status for technology, media and telecom at Legal500 Asia-Pacific, leading lawyer in India from Media Law International, notable practitioner status from Asialaw, a place on the ALB Super 50 India list, LegalEra’s leading lawyer for media and entertainment, and a spot on Business World’s 40 Under 40 in 2021.

For Jio Studios, the hire signals intent. As streaming platforms and content businesses navigate an increasingly complex web of regulatory, transactional and commercial challenges, having a chief legal officer who has sat on the advisory side of exactly those deals gives the studio a sharper read on risk and opportunity alike. Banerjee described the welcome at Jio Studios as warm enough that something entirely new already feels like home, a good sign for how quickly she is likely to settle into the role.