MAM
Wunderman Thompson India onboards Jyoti Mahendru as chief people officer
MUMBAI: Wunderman Thompson India has announced the appointment of Jyoti Mahendru as its new chief people officer, effective 1 August 2022. Mahendru will be responsible for talent development & talent acquisition strategies across the organisation and its group companies while growing and enhancing the agency’s DEI, talent management and development initiatives. She will report directly to Wunderman Thompson South Asia CEO Shams Jasani.
Mahendru is a seasoned professional who has spent over two decades in the industry guiding organisations through growth and transformation. She has held leadership positions across diverse industries, such as media, retail & advertising. She joins Wunderman Thompson from McCann Worldgroup India where she served as the executive vice president of human resources.
Wunderman Thompson South Asia CEO Shams Jasani said on the appointment, “People are our strongest asset and Jyoti’s appointment comes at a time when we are keenly looking at bolstering our efforts to create an environment that fosters learning, growth and development. With her varied exposure, expertise and experience, Jyoti will help us build high performance teams that is integral to our next phase of growth, while helping us streamline processes and shape practices that will enable every employee to accelerate growth, unlock their potential and have a fulfilling career.”
On taking up her new role at Wunderman Thompson, India, Jyoti Mahendru, commented, “Wunderman Thompson India is on an incredible journey to inspire growth for businesses and talent. It is an honour and a privilege to be a part of a legacy agency that has set its vision on being people first that recognises and rewards talent, with a strong focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. As the new chief people officer, I am looking to drive change that not only creates an agile future-ready organisation, but also, increases a sense of employee belonging and fosters the next generation of leaders.”
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.
