Balaji Telefilms appoints Sakett Saawhney as head of creator economy and IP

MUMBAI: Some homecomings are sentimental. This one looks strategic. Balaji Telefilms has appointed Sakett Saawhney as head of creator economy and IP, a newly weighted mandate that puts him in charge of building the studio’s next generation of intellectual property around creators, talent and storytelling. For a company that built its reputation on soap-opera dominance in the 2000s, hiring someone fluent in both the old grammar of television production and the newer economics of creator-led content is a fairly deliberate signal of where it wants to go next.

Saawhney’s return is less a fresh hire and more a reunion. He started his career as an assistant director under Vivek Agnihotri before joining Balaji, where he rose over the best part of a decade through production and general management roles, eventually becoming executive producer and general manager for television production. His fingerprints are on a genuinely enormous slate from that era: Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki, Pavitra Rishta, Kasautii Zindagii Kay, Kkusum, Kavyanjali and Mahabharat among them, a run of shows that essentially defined Balaji’s identity as Indian television’s most prolific content factory.

He left to co-found Flying Turtle Films, where he produced Ganga Ki Dheej and Savitri, and put his name on the 2013 remake of Zanjeer starring Ram Charan, Priyanka Chopra and Sanjay Dutt. Balaji pulled him back as senior vice president for production and operations, and later as head of motion picture production, where he oversaw Ek Villain and Ragini MMS 2. From there his career tracked the industry’s own shift toward digital: producer on Fixerr, then project head and executive producer on Disney+ Hotstar’s Escaype Live, before stints as content head at Wide Angle Media and, most recently, four years running his own outfit, People Like Us, building talent relationships across India’s major reality show franchises.

That is a genuinely unusual combination of experience to bring into one role. Balaji is not simply hiring a television veteran or a digital producer or a talent manager, it is hiring someone who has done all three across nearly 25 years, and betting that the boundaries between those disciplines are exactly where the next wave of value sits. Creator economy is not a comfortable phrase for a studio built on scripted serials, but Saawhney’s own arc, from soap operas to reality talent management to streaming projects, suggests he understands why studios that once treated creators as an afterthought now need them at the centre of IP strategy.

The appointment also fits a pattern playing out across Indian media, where legacy content houses are scrambling to build creator-facing verticals rather than watch influencer-led content siphon audience attention away from studio-produced formats. Balaji has the back catalogue, the production infrastructure and the brand recall; what it has lacked is a structured bridge into the creator economy. Handing that job to someone who already has deep relationships across India’s reality show ecosystem, built through People Like Us, gives the studio a running start rather than a standing one.