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New India Abroad Names Bhabani Das as Chief Business Officer
Bhabani Das to steer global ad sales and IP for 32 million Indians.
MUMBAI: For a platform built on crossing borders, New India Abroad has just made a move designed to cross balance sheets too. New India Abroad, the global media network focused on the 32 million strong Indian diaspora, has appointed Bhabani Prasad Das as its chief business officer, tasking him with accelerating revenue growth and sharpening its digital and branded content strategy across markets.
With nearly two decades of experience in media sales and brand strategy, Das steps into the role at a time when the platform is scaling its presence across North America, Europe and the Middle East. His mandate spans global ad sales across digital, Connected TV and branded content, along with leading strategic alliances and intellectual property development.
The leadership team at New India Abroad described the appointment as a strategic inflection point. They said Das’s experience in scaling media properties and navigating the digital ecosystem would be central to connecting global brands with what they describe as a diverse and affluent diaspora audience.
Das joins after serving as national head of digital branded content and IP at Republic Media Network, where he drove 120 per cent revenue growth. During his tenure, he introduced initiatives such as the R Digital Round Table and several national summits, positioning branded content and intellectual property as revenue engines rather than adjuncts.
His career also includes senior roles across Republic Media Network, ABP Digital and Times Internet Limited, giving him a cross section view of India’s evolving digital and broadcast ecosystem.
At New India Abroad, he will focus on monetising the platform’s multi format footprint, which includes a weekly digital newspaper, daily newsletters and a growing catalogue of video and podcast content in English, Hindi, Punjabi and Gujarati. The aim is to create a more structured commercial framework around a community that spans continents and industries.
Speaking on his appointment, Das said he saw the diaspora as a defining force rather than a peripheral audience. He noted that overseas Indians are no longer just contributors from afar but decision makers shaping economic and cultural narratives globally. His stated goal is to build what he called a world class business framework that reflects that influence and offers brands a trusted, high engagement bridge to this community.
As diaspora media matures from niche storytelling to structured commercial platforms, New India Abroad’s latest appointment signals a clear intent: tell the story, yes, but also own the business of telling it.
MAM
Sameer Nair shares heartfelt note as he exits Applause Entertainment
After nine years building the streamer’s content engine, one of India’s best-known TV men is moving on
MUMBAI: Sameer Nair is out. The chief executive of Applause Entertainment, the content studio backed by Kumar Mangalam Birla’s media empire, has announced his departure after nearly nine years at the helm, closing the chapter on one of Indian entertainment’s more quietly consequential careers.
Nair, who built Applause from the ground up in its current avatar, oversaw a slate that spanned Indian originals and international adaptations, threading together a hub-and-spoke business model that partnered with streaming platforms, broadcasters and production houses alike. The results were uneven, as they always are in content, but the ambition was not.
In a post on LinkedIn, Nair was generous to his outgoing patron. He thanked Birla for being an “inspirational boss and a great patron of the arts,” and signed off with a cheerful “Au Revoir” and a promise to remain Applause’s biggest cheerleader. Whether that sentiment survives the next chapter remains to be seen.
No successor has been named. Applause Entertainment did not immediately comment.
Nair built the machine. Now someone else has to run it — and in a streaming market that is simultaneously consolidating and convulsing, that is no small ask.
