MAM
ZenithOptimedia India appoints Ajit Gurnani as managing partner & branch head, west
MUMBAI: ZenithOptimedia India has roped in Ajit Gurnani as its managing partner and branch head, ZO west.
ZenithOptimedia India managing director Hari Krishnan said, “ZenithOptimedia is making rapid progress in Mumbai especially with its expanding new-age client list such as Faaso’s, Ziffy, TImesaverz and many others yet to be announced. We needed somebody with rich experience and robust background spanning both agency and client side experience. Ajit, with his experience across markets, clients and verticals was best suited for the role. It helps us to strengthen our offer to all our businesses and prospective clients.”
Gurnani added, “I am excited to be part of ZenithOptimedia and really like the agency’s proposition of Live ROI and all the proprietary tools and knowledge they have built around it. I am also excited with their superior offering in digital and performance marketing through Performics, Resultrix and the Business Analytics offering through Ninah. I hope to embrace these at the soonest and apply it to the clients I will be handling.”
Gurnani has over 18 years of work experience in the fields of media, brand management and marketing. His media exposure has been with advertising agencies like HTA (now Mindshare / JWT), Rediffusion DY&R (TME), Mindshare and MEC on clients like Unilever, Colgate Palmolive, Aditya Birla Group and Mercedes Benz among others.
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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.
