MAM
LV Vaidyanathan elevated as P&G India CEO
Mumbai: Procter & Gamble (P&G) on Tuesday announced that LV Vaidyanathan will take over as chief executive officer for its operations in India from 1 July.
Vaidyanathan will take over from Madhusudan Gopalan, who is going to take on an important leadership role within P&G as senior vice president – grooming & oral care, P&G Japan & Korea. During his four-year tenure at the helm of P&G India, Madhusudan led the transformation of the business to consistently deliver sustainable top and bottom-line growth, according to the company.
An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, Vaidyanathan started his journey with P&G in 1995 as an intern and joined the India Sales team straight from campus in 1996. He has more than 26 years of experience across diverse geographies and cultures like India and ASEAN countries including Singapore, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. He is currently leading the P&G business in Indonesia as CEO where he has been responsible for industry-leading growth and value creation for the company. Under his leadership, the Indonesian business has transformed to become value accretive for the parent company and has overtaken a formidable competitor in the market by turning around the share gap in the last four years. A passionate advocate for Equality and Inclusion, under his leadership, P&G has achieved the milestone of having 50 per cent women representation in their leadership team, the company shared. Vaidyanathan has also served as the chairman of Indonesia Chapter of US ASEAN Business Council.
“It is a moment of great pride for me to come back to India and spearhead the P&G business,” said LV Vaidyanathan. “I am looking forward to being back in the market, learning more about the Indian consumers and serving their needs. For us, going forward, it will be important to continue the focus on our strategy which is delivering consistent results. We will continue to drive productivity improvements to fund investments in innovation and help drive balanced top-and bottom-line growth. As a focused and agile and accountable organisation operating at the speed of the market, we will also aim to lead constructive disruption across the value chain in the industry.”
Madhusudan has been heavily invested in developing young Indian talent and grooming Indian talent for international roles within the company. Under his leadership, the company launched its ‘P&G Suraksha India’ program towards Covid relief where it contributed towards vaccine doses, oxygen concentrators, masks, and sanitizers for the protection of frontline workers and underprivileged communities. He has been instrumental in sharpening the company’s focus on environmental sustainability and P&G recently became one of the first FMCG companies in the country to achieve ‘plastic packaging waste neutrality,’ stated the FMCG major.
“It has been a great honour to lead the P&G business in India, my home country where I started my P&G career. The four-year journey has been an enriching and rewarding one and I’m proud of what we have achieved together as the India team. I am delighted with the appointment of LV Vaidyanathan as my successor, one of India’s home-grown talents who I firmly believe has the right expertise to lead the growth of our business in India in the years to come. I am confident that he will continue to lead the P&G India business to greater heights and in turn, incrementally contribute to the overall growth for the parent company,” said Madhusudan Gopalan.
“I want to thank Madhusudan for his outstanding leadership of the India organisation over the last four years and the transformation of the business to delivering consistent balanced growth and value creation,” P&G president for Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa Magesvaran Suranjan said. “Not only has his leadership been exemplary to guide the company through the pandemic, but he is also leaving the business well-positioned to win in India for years to come. I am thrilled with LV Vaidyanathan’s appointment as the India CEO, who has been an integral part of the P&G growth story for well over two decades. The moves for both Madhusudan and LV are testament to the strength of Indian talent and India’s importance as a talent factory for P&G globally.”
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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.
