MAM
Pocket FM dials up its brand game as Adityan Kayalakal tunes in
MUMBAI: If careers had soundtracks, Adityan Kayalakal’s would be a genre-blending mixtape and his latest track begins at Pocket FM, where he has joined as vice president for brand. For someone who has spent years straddling sport, streaming, edtech, fintech and Web3, returning to entertainment feels less like a move and more like a homecoming. “Feels incredible to return to entertainment,” he shared, summing up a journey shaped by platforms that travel, connect and stay.
Kayalakal steps into the Mumbai-based, hybrid-role in December 2025, bringing with him a decade-plus of brand-building that has hopped across industries but stayed rooted in one instinct: understanding what makes audiences stop, watch, listen and come back for more.
Before Pocket FM, he helmed marketing at Jupiter, where he spent seven months steering brand strategy for the fintech challenger. But his sharpest growth sprint came at Veera, where he was a founding team member and eventually Head of Marketing & GTM. The Web3 browser rocketed to 4 million users in its first year, clocking 1 million MAUs, 500k WAUs, 100k DAUs, and an average of 13 plus minutes spent per user per day numbers that placed it among the fastest-growing Web3 applications globally. The brand’s breakthrough campaigns from the see-through ‘Toilet’ installation to the giant ‘Cashpile’ didn’t just win awards; they sparked conversation and cemented Veera as a startup to watch in 2024.
Long before Web3 and fintech, Kayalakal was shaping storytelling at scale. At BYJU’S, he led global digital strategy, brand platforms and partnerships, delivering some of the company’s most high-impact campaigns. His slate included unveiling Lionel Messi as the face of BYJU’S social initiative; orchestrating communication for the BYJU’S x FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 partnership, which fetched 4 billion eyeballs; and driving the “Education For All” campaign to 100 million views. His sports-led anthems from Kerala Blasters to the Indian men’s and women’s cricket teams collectively racked up hundreds of millions of views.
But perhaps his most formative years were at the NBA, where he headed content and then digital and distribution partnerships for South Asia. In barely two weeks, he created 350 plus content pieces for the first-ever NBA India Games and went on to roll out Hoop Nation, which won Promax Gold and Silver. He also scripted landmark distribution deals with Disney India, DD Sports (driving 70 million new TV viewers), and ultimately a long-term partnership with Viacom18 & Jio helping expand NBA’s footprint across TV, digital, gaming and esports.
Earlier, he held roles across entertainment brands including Hotstar, Movies Now, ESPN and Hasbro’s Transformers, shaping his sense of narrative, culture and consumer behaviour.
With Pocket FM rapidly scaling its audio entertainment ecosystem, Kayalakal’s remit will be to sharpen its brand storytelling, expand its cultural footprint and build the next chapter of a platform that has already redefined long-form audio fiction in India.
For someone who thrives where stories breathe from courtside to crypto to classrooms, Pocket FM seems like the next world where the narrative is waiting to be rewritten. And if his track record is anything to go by, the brand’s next season is about to sound a whole lot louder.
MAM
Beacon Group appoints Dr Rajesh Patel as Group CEO
36-year healthcare veteran to lead Beacon Diagnostics, Vector Biotek, Biogeny.
MUMBAI: A new chief, a fresh diagnosis and a sharper prescription for growth. Beacon Group has appointed Dr Rajesh Patel as its Group Chief Executive Officer, effective April 1, 2026, signalling a decisive push to scale its presence in the diagnostics and IVD space. Patel steps into the role with 36 years of experience across the healthcare and diagnostics industry, bringing a career shaped by leadership roles spanning sales, marketing, business development and operational strategy. His mandate is both expansive and precise: to steer the group’s overall strategic direction while tightening coordination across its three core entities Beacon Diagnostics, Vector Biotek and Biogeny Diagnostics.
In practical terms, that means driving cross-company synergies, accelerating market expansion and strengthening organisational capability areas increasingly critical as diagnostic players compete for scale in a fragmented yet rapidly evolving healthcare ecosystem. The group is positioning itself to capture unmet demand across chain laboratories, key accounts and standalone labs, segments that remain underserved despite growing diagnostic needs.
The appointment comes at a time when the In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) sector in India is entering a more competitive and innovation-led phase, with companies focusing not just on product pipelines but also on service delivery, integration and customer-centric models. Beacon’s leadership appears to be betting that Patel’s execution-focused approach can help translate ambition into operational momentum.
Welcoming the appointment, Chairman Dr D K Joshi described Patel’s induction as a strategic move aligned with the group’s long-term vision, emphasising the role of leadership depth in navigating the next phase of growth.
For Beacon Group, the message is clear, in a sector where precision matters, leadership is the new differentiator—and this appointment is intended to set the tone for what comes next.
