MAM
Sumeer Mathur appointed as national planning head & managing partner, Havas Worldwide (Creative) India
Mumbai: Havas Group India has announced the appointment of Sumeer Mathur as national planning head and managing partner, Havas Worldwide India – the creative agency of the group, with immediate effect. He will be based out of the Gurugram office and report to Havas Group India group CEO Rana Barua.
“The meaningful difference we make to our client’s business through our differentiated products, digital-led strategic solutions and engaging storytelling, is what led us to the top league in the industry. Sumeer will drive this further,” stated Havas Group India chairman and chief creative officer Bobby Pawar. “Throughout his career, Sumeer has worked with strong business teams, delivering tangible business results. His keen interest in understanding what drives culture, what motivates consumers, and how digital technologies are reshaping brand interactions will add a tremendous value to our strategic planning function.”
Mathur will be partnering Havas Worldwide (Creative) managing director Manas Lahiri and Havas Worldwide (Creative) ED and NCD Ravinder Siwach to scale up the agency further, collaborate with key clients including Reckitt, Citroën, Dabur, Suzuki, William Grant, Tata and Harman (JBL) among many others, and drive the strategic planning vision and expertise at Havas Creative India, said the statement.
He will also collaborate closely with Havas Worldwide’s chief client officer and head of group integration Arindam Sengupta, and Havas CX EVP and business head Prashant Tekwani to drive the group’s vision of integration and CX. In addition, Mathur will also join forces with the entire senior leadership of the group companies of Havas Group to help drive the integration across the network.
“We need to now build a strong integrated leadership team that aggressively takes this growth mandate ahead. With Sumeer, Manas, Ravinder, Arindam, Prashant, Geet and all the other leaders forming the core team, it will further fuel our growth and empower us to deliver meaningful, ROI-centric marketing solutions for our clients,” said Rana Barua.
Mathur has worked across industries such as FMCG, telecom, automobiles, foods for some of India’s leading brands including Royal Enfield, Bira, Mother Dairy, Airtel, Unilever’s Fair & Lovely, Clinic All Clear, Cadbury and many more. Over the years, he has had successful stints at leading agencies such as DDB Mudra Group, JWT, Rediffusion Y&R, Contract and Lowe Lintas. His last stint was at Edelman as SVP, national planning and strategy head.
“Havas Creative’s philosophy of meaningful brands is ahead of the curve in its understanding of the forces that shape consumer attitudes and behaviour in the world today. I look forward to leveraging this for our clients across categories,” said Sumeer Mathur on his new role.
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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.
