MAM
Snapdeal appoints former HUL brand director Kanika Kalra as VP marketing
MUMBAI Snapdeal appointed Kanika Kalra as vice president – marketing. A seasoned global marketing professional with a career spanning over 12 years, Kanika joins Snapdeal after several triumphant stints at Hindustan Unilever limited, Pepsico and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Limited.
At Snapdeal, Kanika will be focused on making the business more customer-centric and ensuring creativity and impact in all communication.
Welcoming Kanika, Snapdeal co founder Rohit Bansal said, “We are thrilled to welcome Kanika. She comes with a vast and distinguished experience in brand marketing. As we look at defining more innovative solutions for our customers, I am sure she will add tremendous value and further fuel our growth”.
Speaking about her appointment, Kalra said, “As ecommerce continues to revolutionize the Indian economy, I am confident that Snapdeal is poised to play an even bigger and more impactful role in the coming years. I am excited to be a part of Snapdeal’s journey and to shepherd the company’s growth as the country’s most preferred retail brand.”
During her eight year stint as the Global Brand Director for Hindustan Unilever Limited, she spearheaded key innovations in the skincare category. Prior to that she was a part of the brand marketing teams at Pepsico and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Limited.
Kanika holds a Post Graduate degree in Marketing from IIM, Lucknow and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Delhi University.
AD Agencies
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.
