MAM
Shailesh Pathak joins as executive director of Bhartiya Group
MUMBAI: Bhartiya Group has announced the appointment of Shailesh Pathak as its new executive director.
Pathak will be responsible for the company’s foray into new ventures in city development and affordable housing, as well as public-private partnership initiatives.
He will also lead the Group’s relationships in finance, industry and international bodies and report to the group founder and chairman Snehdeep Aggarwal.
Welcoming Pathak to the company, Aggarwal said, “We are extremely pleased to have an eminent professional like Pathak join the Bhartiya team. With his strengths in finance, infrastructure and public policy, Pathak will spearhead our foray into new ventures. We are confident that given his in-depth know-how and vast experience, he will propel the Group to greater heights adding a new dimension to our business vision.”
After starting his career as an investment banker with ICICI in 1986, Pathak worked with SREI Infrastructure Finance as president – corporate strategy for four year before joining Bhartiya Group, where he focused on international capital for Indian Infrastructure. Prior to this, he was managing director, PE Indian Infrastructure Fund out of London/Geneva.
Post ICICI, he subsequently joined the government in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and served in various capacities during his 16 year tenure. He served as managing director of state infrastructure development corporation and secretary PWD for six years. Rejoining the private sector in 2006, he came to IDFC as head-PPP, and returned to the ICICI group to lead private equity investments into infrastructure as senior director-investments with ICICI Venture, Mumbai for two years.
Pathak is an MBA from IIM Calcutta and holds a bachelor’s degree from Shriram College of Commerce, Delhi. He is also a law graduate.
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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.
