MAM
Leo Burnett elevates Dheeraj Sinha, Rajdeepak Das as MDs
MUMBAI: Advertising agency Leo Burnett India has announced two key elevations in its senior leadership. Dheeraj Sinha and Rajdeepak Das have been named as managing directors.
Both currently serve as the chief strategy officer and chief creative officer at Leo Burnett South Asia, respectively. The duo will continue to be based out of Mumbai and will report into Publicis Communications India CEO Saurabh Varma. Their new roles are in addition to their current responsibilities.
In his new mandate, Sinha will be responsible for the agency’s revenue growth, in addition to heading its strategic and planning output. Das’ new role will see him leverage Leo Burnett’s humankind philosophy in order to elevate Burnett’s creative product.
Speaking about his promotion, Sinha says, “I am looking forward to leading Leo Burnett at possibly the best time that the agency has ever had. Our success at Cannes Lions last year — being the only agency to win for innovation and effectiveness — is a good framing of our agency ambition. As a chief strategy officer, in various jobs across Asia, I have been deeply involved in the business aspect of the agency over the last decade. I am now looking forward to running the business hands-on. I am fortunate to have Raj’s partnership and Saurabh’s backing in my new role.”
Das adds to this, “I am incredibly proud of where Leo Burnett’s creative output stands today. The last three years have been a great journey. We have turned our agency into one of the youngest and most dynamic creative companies in the region. Having said that, I believe we are only as good as our last piece of creative work. There is so much more to take on and achieve and I can’t think of a better partner than Dheeraj to take on my new responsibilities with.”
Speaking about the development, Varma says, “Four years back we started on an incredible journey as a team. We challenged every rule book, every status quo. We wanted to create ‘Wave Three’ where engagement, experience and utility would be celebrated as much as a piece of content. We wanted to create a maker culture. In this period, Indigo Consulting became a digital powerhouse. We launched Arc Worldwide and made it one of the leading experiential agencies, and built Prodigious into one of the finest production houses in India. We created epic work and had great fun doing it.”
He further adds, “Leo Burnett now needs a new chapter. The ‘power of one’ has given Leo Burnett access to the best specialist operations in the country. Backed by the expertise of Indigo, Arc, Prodigious MSLGroup and Publicis.Sapient, the agency is now in the best position to partner our clients’ businesses. Raj and Dheeraj have, together, transformed Leo Burnett India into the formidable force it is today. They have always led from the front and it is the right time to acknowledge the role they already play. Our collective ambition remains the same; to be the best in the world, bar none.”
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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.
