MAM
NPCI ropes in Sohini Rajola to supercharge growth and partnerships
MUMBAI: If India’s digital payments sector were a rocket, NPCI just strapped a turbo booster to its engine. On 2 April 2025, the National Payments Corporation of India appointed industry heavyweight Sohini Rajola as executive director – growth, a move that signals the organisation is gunning for scale, speed and sharper innovation.
With two decades of experience spanning the length and breadth of banking and payments, Rajola has swapped her global briefcase at Western Union, where she served as Asia Pacific regional head, for a high-voltage mandate back home.
Her to-do list? Massive.
At NPCI, Rajola will lead the adoption of the corporation’s payment solutions across the nation, sharpen its product strategy, spearhead marketing innovation, and drive aggressive go-to-market tactics. She’ll also wrangle strategic alliances with banks, fintech players, regulators and government agencies. If it has a PIN code and a payment gateway, chances are she’s involved.
“Sohini brings with her a wealth of experience in the payments and digital banking space. Her expertise will be invaluable in leading forward-thinking initiatives and driving innovative technical solutions to address both current and future market demands. We are confident that she will play a key role in advancing our mission to provide secure, seamless digital payment solutions for all. We welcome Sohini to the NPCI Group,” said NPCI MD & CEO Dilip Asbe.
Rajola’s past includes heavyweight stints at Axis Bank, where she headed digital banking and cards, and a proven track record of navigating the complex corridors of digital transformation in the financial sector. Her return to India’s payment backbone couldn’t be more timely, as NPCI scales its solutions beyond borders and further entrenches UPI and RuPay into daily life.
With Rajola now in the cockpit, expect more firepower from India’s payments mothership.
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.
