Mumbai: Apurva Purohit, the president of the Jagran Group has announced her decision to step down, after working for over half a decade with the group and nearly 16 years with MBL (Radio City). She will remain with the organization till 30 June. 

Purohit played a pivotal role in its transformational growth of Radio City as a leading brand in the FM radio industry. MBL went public in 2016 and is currently among the most valuable FM players in the public market. 

“Apurva’s key strengths lie in her ability to simplify complex problems, build teams, and implement innovations and strategies in a focused and extremely effective fashion. Her understanding of consumer behavior and what drives change in people, and managing the tough business of media which requires both right and left brain thinking, and her business acumen have been invaluable to Jagran, especially in the last few difficult years. Her exit is a great loss to the Group,” said Jagran Prakashan Limited, group chief financial officer, R K Aggarwal. 

In a statement released on Thursday, the company said Purohit helped the group to pivot from a deep-rooted reliance on its traditional print businesses to focus on new age emerging businesses. The strategies adopted under her tutelage and her emphasis on excellence in implementation have helped create strong and resilient verticals in radio, print, outdoor and digital with the ability to power through difficult economic scenarios, it added further. 

Purohit has spent nearly 32 years in media, beginning with Lodestar to working in television, radio, print, and digital. “These three decades have given me incredible opportunities to build and scale up a diverse set of businesses - from fledgling ones like Radio City to new ventures like Times TV and supervising turnarounds in mature organizations like Zee TV. I will continue to use these experiences to mentor and guide CEOs and entrepreneurs to build valuable businesses, a role I have been doing for the past few years at Jagran and the other companies I am associated with,” Purohit said on Thursday. 

Elaborating on her decision, Purohit added, “I have been reflecting recently, especially in this period of crisis, that it is the job of each one of us who has the ability and the resources to drive change, to worry about the economic situation around us and do everything in our power to create positive impact. This phase of my journey is about creating and funding businesses which work towards generating employment where it is needed, and at scale, a sorely needed initiative given the significant number of people who have been rendered jobless in the past year.”