Brands
Sameer Wanchoo zips into VIP as chief marketing officer
MUMBAI: Earlier this month, Sameer Wanchoo packed his bags—and unpacked a bigger mandate. The seasoned marketer joined VIP Industries as chief marketing officer, taking over the brand cockpit of India’s luggage major from early December.
Wanchoo brings with him a long-haul career in consumer goods, honed across mass, premium and everything in between. Most recently, he spent over seven years at Eureka Forbes, where as CMO he helped sharpen growth engines across categories, channels and consumer cohorts.
Before that, he clocked stints at CavinKare—twice. First as VP marketing, overseeing personal care, foods and beverages, and earlier as GM marketing for hair care, where brands such as Chik, Nyle, Meera and Karthika kept their shine in a brutally competitive aisle. In between came a global toy turn at Mattel as category manager for infant and pre-school, and a retail baptism at Big Bazaar’s Food Bazaar in the west zone.
His early years read like a marketing boot camp: product management at Dabur (via Balsara Home Products), sales at ESPN Star Sports, and media planning at Starcom—before digital became dinner-table conversation.
At VIP, Wanchoo will be expected to do more than polish logos. The brief spans brand, product, digital, research, media and P&L—no small suitcase. With travel back on the boil and consumers trading up, the timing is propitious, the competition unforgiving.
From soap to suitcases, vacuums to voyages, Wanchoo has sold it all. Now he must make VIP travel faster, lighter and louder. No baggage allowed.
Brands
ZEEL transfers syndication business, invests Rs 505 crore in IP push
Restructuring, stake buy and FCCB moves signal sharper content strategy
MUMBAI: In the content economy, owning the story is half the battle monetising it is the real game, and Zee Entertainment Enterprises is doubling down on both. The company has approved the transfer of its syndication and content licensing business to its wholly owned subsidiary ZI-IPR Enterprises, alongside an investment of Rs 505 crore aimed at strengthening its play in content intellectual property (IP) acquisition, management and monetisation. The move, effective April 1, 2026, will see the business transferred on a slump sale basis at book value, including all associated assets, liabilities and commercial rights effectively consolidating IP operations under a more focused structure.
At its core, the restructuring signals a strategic shift. As content consumption increasingly fragments across digital and global platforms, the value of IP lies not just in creation but in how efficiently it can be distributed, repackaged and monetised across markets. By housing its syndication engine within ZI-IPR Enterprises, ZEEL appears to be building a more agile and scalable ecosystem, one that can better extract value from its vast content library while adapting to evolving distribution models.
But the company’s ambitions are not limited to restructuring. ZEEL has also approved an investment of up to Rs 20.09 crore in Culture of Real Experiences (CORE), acquiring a 51 per cent stake in the entity. The move expands its footprint into the broader creative and experiential space, suggesting a push beyond traditional broadcasting into areas where content, culture and immersive experiences intersect.
At the same time, ZEEL has moved to tidy up its financials, approving the redemption of $23.9 million in outstanding foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) and cancelling an unused $215.1 million commitment. The twin steps are expected to ease pressure on its treasury, freeing up capital and improving financial flexibility as the company invests more aggressively in its IP strategy.
Taken together, the decisions reflect a company in recalibration mode streamlining legacy structures, sharpening its focus on content ownership, and exploring new avenues for growth. In a market where the lines between television, streaming and experiential entertainment are increasingly blurred, ZEEL’s latest moves suggest it is not just creating content, but building a system to make that content travel further and pay better.
