MAM
Skechers signs on Yasmin Karachiwala
MUMBAI: Bollywood celebrity fitness trainer Yasmin Karachiwala has been signed by Skechers, the sports lifestyle brand known for its high-performance shoes. Karachiwala, with her experience, will now represent Skechers as their fitness expert in India.
Karachiwala has been part of the fitness industry for 22 years and has trained Bollywood big-wigs like Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif, Alia Bhatt and lot more. Apart from owning a gym-body image in the Mumbai suburbs, she is also the first BASI certified pilates instructor in India and established the first pilates studio in Mumbai.
As a fitness expert for Skechers, Karachiwala will be guiding the youth of today towards healthy living and will encourage them to take up a fitness regime as part of their daily lives. She will also interact with them on the importance of having a fit body and mind through the Skechers social media handles, and will also impart knowledge about using the right shoe for the right activity.
Karachiwala says: This International footwear brand has set standards for great fitness in India and abroad. Any fitness regime is elevated by when done with the correct technique and wearing the right shoe. A good workout needs a perfect pair of shoes as a perfect companion.”
Skechers south India CEO Rahul Vira said, “Karachiwala, as the Skechers fitness expert, she will motivate youngsters and impart knowledge on how walking, running and simple work out regime should become an indispensable part of our everyday life.”
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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.
