MAM
Lemma ropes in Puneet Biyani as company president
Mumbai: Lemma, an independent supply-side platform for digital out-of-home, announced the appointment of Puneet Biyani as company president. He will take on his new role immediately and be a key contributor to enhancing Lemma’s global footprint.
Biyani joins Lemma with over two decades of experience in business operations, finance, international marketing, and strategy. His most recent stint was with Times OOH, a subsidiary of Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.
As president, Biyani will work closely with the board and the leadership team across APAC and other regions to craft the company’s business growth vision and expansion strategy into global markets. He will also oversee finance, business planning, process automation, fundraising, & business operations for Lemma across all markets.
Having spent the larger part of his career with The Times of India Group, Biyani has extensive out-of-home advertising experience. He held the position of chief financial officer for Times Innovative Media Ltd. (Times OOH) while also leading their Mauritius business.
Biyani has worked with global organisations like Price Waterhouse and Goldman Sachs. On the academic front, he is a gold-medal-winning chartered accountant and Harvard Business School alumnus.
Lemma has become the go-to platform for enabling programmatic buying of out-of-home (OOH) media by a wide range of clients, including top digital media agencies, advertising giants, and major brands around the world today.
On joining Lemma, Biyani said, “I am really excited to be part of this amazing team. Lemma has been a pioneer in the digital advertising segment. I look forward to working closely with the team on the exciting journey ahead. The space is bound to expand rapidly, and on the technology front, Lemma is well positioned to lead and shape the development.”
“Having Biyani onboard as company president at Lemma will inject a new level of energy and innovative thinking to help accelerate the company’s growth and attain our vision of transforming DOOH into mainstream digital as we enter a new phase of scaling business,” said Lemma founder & CEO Gulab Patil.
Patil adds, “His expertise aligns perfectly with our business expansion plan as we continue to strengthen our technology and team globally and enhance our programmatic DOOH presence.”
Biyani will be based out of Lemma’s Delhi office and will serve as the liaison between all teams and markets from the capital city.
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.
