AD Agencies
Rishit Mehta named CFO of Omnicom Media India
MUMBAI: Omnicom Media India has tapped Rishit Mehta as its new chief financial officer, signalling a tighter grip on operations as the network races to scale in one of the world’s fastest-growing ad markets. The announcement was shared internally by Tony Harradine, chief executive of Omnicom Media APAC.
The leadership rejig does not stop there. Kartik Sharma steps in as chief executive officer for India operations, while Amardeep Singh takes charge as chief operating officer. Industry stalwart Shashi Sinha shifts into an advisory role, offering strategic counsel as the company beds in a sweeping post-merger overhaul after acquiring Interpublic Group in the region.
The restructure is designed to steer the integrated entity smoothly through a turbulent transition, strengthening client delivery, synchronising agency backbones and pushing for sharper growth in a market that refuses to slow down.
Formal announcements are expected on the India portal in the coming days. Until then, all eyes are on Omnicom’s new power trio, tasked with proving that bold moves can beat market headwinds to the finish line.
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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.
