MAM
MediaCom announces changes to Worldwide, EMEA and UK leadership teams
MUMBAI: MediaCom has promoted Nick Lawson, Josh Krichefski and Kate Rowlinson in changes to its Worldwide, EMEA and UK leadership teams. All changes will come into effect in September.
Nick Lawson, currently MediaCom’s EMEA CEO and global client practice lead, succeeds Toby Jenner as worldwide chief operating officer. Nick will be responsible for driving the network’s business development, marketing and product offers, while retaining his position as global client practice lead. Nick has been with the agency for 28 years, originally as part of the media business before it merged with MediaCom in 1999.
Josh Krichefski, who originally joined MediaCom in 2011, replaces Lawson as EMEA CEO, having spent the last three years as UK CEO. He takes responsibility for 4,400 people across 37 offices, driving the vision and culture for the region.
Josh is replaced as UK CEO by Kate Rowlinson, the agency’s current managing director, Worldwide Hubs who has been part of the network for ten years. She will lead the country’s biggest agency, comprised of 1,250 people across five offices.
Worldwide chairman and CEO Stephen Allan said of the appointments, “Nick, Josh and Kate’s track records in delivering truly innovative work are unparalleled and I am in no doubt they are the best people to lead the MediaCom network into its next exciting chapter. They will bring forward thinking and rich expertise to our clients, helping them achieve their growth agendas, and perfectly exemplify our People First, Better Results belief. Their continued personal growth has and will continue to deliver the best possible results for the brands we work with.”
Lawson and Krichefski will report into Stephen Allan, whilst Rowlinson will report into Krichefski.
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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.
