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DisneyUTV Digital appoints Paul Joseph Wrider as Director Game Designing
MUMBAI: DisneyUTV Digital has appointed Paul Joseph Wrider, an old hand in the global gaming industry with 10 years of experience, as Director – Game Design for its gaming business in India.
Based out of Mumbai, Paul will lead the Game Design team and will be responsible for developing new IPs.
Before joining DisneyUTV Digital, Paul was the lead game designer at FunMobility, Inc. the social mobile entertainment company based in United States of America.
Paul has worked with top gaming companies like Digital Chocolate, Storm8 and Zynga where he successfully launched the first Facebook based, fully 3D Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game, ‘Guild of Heroes’, and worked on other popular titles like Mafia Wars and Vampires.
DisneyUTV MD – Digital Vishal Gondal said, “DisneyUTV Digital is happy to have Paul Wrider onboard. We believe in leveraging technology to provide our users with engaging content to enhance their digital experience and we are constantly exploring new opportunities to build on that legacy. With Paul’s extensive experience and knowledge in game designing and the global gaming industry overall we will be able to develop new gaming IPs and add to our existing popular titles across mobile platforms.”
It was in August that DisneyUTV had consolidated its digital business by bringing all its digital assets in India under a new arm, DisneyUTV Digital. The digital division was to be spearheaded by Vishal Gondal and Samir Bangara. However, Bangara had earlier this month quit the organisation.
Incidentally, both Gondal and Bangara were appointed as managing director of DisneyUTV Digital to drive the company’s future growth. The new division was given the remit to develop and manage all content and brands from Disney, Marvel and UTV Bindass, as well as original content and games.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
