MAM
Paytm Insider elevates Varun Khare to COO
Mumbai: Paytm Insider, one of India’s leading entertainment experiences platforms, announced the elevation of Varun Khare to chief operating officer (COO). In his new role, Varun will lead the company’s operational strategies, driving growth and innovation across all facets of the business.
Having been with the organisation for four years, Varun as the business head showcased exceptional leadership, strategic vision, and a deep understanding of the evolving needs of the customers and partners. Under his management, Paytm Insider witnessed over 100 per cent growth in GMV each year over the last two years whilst quadrupling the revenue in the last two years. With a clear understanding of the brand’s vision and the need to build the event’s infrastructure in India, Varun was instrumental in making significant inroads into tier two and three markets by collaborating with artists, organisers, and promoters to enhance live event experiences.
Before joining Paytm Insider, Varun worked with Fountainhead MKTG and eventually Oranjuice Entertainment. With a robust background spanning 17 years in the live events and entertainment industry, he specialises in meticulously crafting and executing intellectual properties (IPs).
Talking about his new position, Paytm Insider COO Varun Khare said, “When I moved to Paytm Insider, the intention was to scale up and work with a brand whose value system and culture resonated with mine. Working with a team of 150 exceptionally talented individuals and earning their respect has been one of the most gratifying and significant achievements of my career. We have successfully expanded to over 170 cities having reached a diverse customer base across genres making my journey both challenging and rewarding.”
He further added, “I am grateful to all the passionate people who have been a part of my journey. I am looking forward to this new phase. We’ve only just gotten started and have put ourselves in a great position to make live entertainment the preferred choice of entertainment across the country.”
Talking about Varun’s promotion, Paytm Insider founder & CEO Shreyas Srinivasan expressed, “Paytm Insider was founded with the vision of making events a preferred choice for entertainment in India. Over the last five years we have built a full-fledged platform that supports organisers with a range of services that spans ticketing, sponsorship, artist booking, marketing and more. Varun has been instrumental in this build-out, his vast experience across all aspects of organising an event has allowed us to build a platform which will champion events and organisers across this country. I am super confident that this team has the right mix to make Insider the dominant events platform in India.”
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.
