MAM
Yogesh Saini joins WAVES Bazaar as head of marketing and business development
MUMBAI: Yogesh Saini has joined the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) Bazaar, under the National Film Development Corporation (nfdc), as head of marketing and business development, signalling a renewed push to position India’s creative industries on the global stage.
Based in Delhi, Saini will lead marketing, branding and international outreach for WAVES across films, OTT, gaming, animation and the wider AVGC ecosystem. His mandate includes building global partnerships with studios, platforms and broadcasters, scaling B2B markets and roadshows, and strengthening industry engagement through initiatives such as Creatosphere and WavesX.
Saini brings nearly two decades of experience across India’s media and entertainment landscape. Most recently, he was head of marketing at Civic Studios, where he worked on international and Indian film and OTT projects, blended pop culture with social impact storytelling, and integrated AI-led marketing solutions to scale reach and engagement.
Earlier, he headed marketing at The Viral Fever, steering campaigns for breakout shows such as Panchayat, Gullak, Tripling and Pitchers across multiple OTT platforms. Before that, Saini spent close to six years at Fox Star Studios, leading marketing for both Bollywood and Hollywood slates in India and overseas markets, working on franchises including Deadpool, Kung Fu Panda, X-Men and Ice Age.
His career also includes stints at Walt Disney India, Sony DADC and Moser Baer Entertainment, spanning theatrical releases, home entertainment, consumer products and international distribution.
At WAVES Bazaar, Saini is expected to play a central role in aligning government, industry and global stakeholders as India seeks to expand its creative economy footprint worldwide.
New city, new mandate, bigger canvas — and the race to take Indian storytelling global is firmly on.
MAM
Sameer Nair shares heartfelt note as he exits Applause Entertainment
After nine years building the streamer’s content engine, one of India’s best-known TV men is moving on
MUMBAI: Sameer Nair is out. The chief executive of Applause Entertainment, the content studio backed by Kumar Mangalam Birla’s media empire, has announced his departure after nearly nine years at the helm, closing the chapter on one of Indian entertainment’s more quietly consequential careers.
Nair, who built Applause from the ground up in its current avatar, oversaw a slate that spanned Indian originals and international adaptations, threading together a hub-and-spoke business model that partnered with streaming platforms, broadcasters and production houses alike. The results were uneven, as they always are in content, but the ambition was not.
In a post on LinkedIn, Nair was generous to his outgoing patron. He thanked Birla for being an “inspirational boss and a great patron of the arts,” and signed off with a cheerful “Au Revoir” and a promise to remain Applause’s biggest cheerleader. Whether that sentiment survives the next chapter remains to be seen.
No successor has been named. Applause Entertainment did not immediately comment.
Nair built the machine. Now someone else has to run it — and in a streaming market that is simultaneously consolidating and convulsing, that is no small ask.
