An ode to the ever-cheerful Raj Nayak: The mentor for many media veterans and stalwarts

Industry stalwart Raj Nayak, who is now an entrepreneur and the Managing Director of House of Cheer Networks for the past 5 years, a HappTech company has contributed immensely to the media industry with his business, sales, marketing, and business strategy leadership, mentoring and transforming businesses.

In the past, he was associated with the leading network groups, including Viacom18 for more than 8 years as their Chief Operating Officer from 2011 to 2019 in his last stint before he turned entrepreneur.

Raj Nayak has nurtured and mentored many c-suite leaders during his three-and-a-half-plus decades of experience. Under Raj Nayak's mentorship, the industry has gained many leaders who are currently leading organisations, and initiatives and making an impact. He is a common factor in professional and career journeys.

Nayak started Aidem Ventures in April 2010, one of the largest independent media sales, marketing and consulting companies. It helped people tap into their networks, research, and technology to monetise their assets, automate their ads and expand their market.

Raj Nayak is an advisor to the advertising services firm Yapp Advertising promoted by Atul Hegde.

Nayak started his career with TCS Mumbai. His career in sales began in Bangalore. He came to Delhi and started his career in print with the newspaper Pioneer.  He also held a leadership role at the newspaper Sunday Mail. Nayak then started his stint in TV airtime sales and began his ten years with STAR TV as an Area Sales Manager and progressed to the position of Executive Vice President, while simultaneously serving on the Managing Committee. From 2002 to 2010, he took over as the Chief Executive Officer of NDTV Media.

He is one of the most well-respected experts in the media industry because of his exceptional ability to coach others and develop novel ideas. Nayak, who promotes happiness, finds inspiration in people from all walks of life and thinks that diversity is powerful. Many leaders and senior executives in media who are top leaders have shared their journey with Nayak and Raj has mentored them and has had an impact on their careers and life. 

Today exchange4media looks at some of these leaders who have worked with Nayak.

Vikram Mehra



Vikram Mehra is the present Managing Director of Saregama India for more than a decade now. He was working as a part of the Digital Platforms Group at Star India with Nayak during 2000-2004 which was created to spearhead its foray into DTH and cable services in India. 

Prior to Saregama, he was with Tata Sky as their Chief Commercial Officer and was responsible for Subscription Revenue Management, Churn Management, Brand Marketing, New Product Devt, Customer Analytics, Interactive Service Operations, Consumer Research and PR for more than 2.5 years between April 2012 to October 2014.

In the past, he also handled Brand Management (Advertising, Media buying, PR) for Tata Indica, and Tata Estate and Product Planning for Tata Indigo.

Avinash Kaul, CEO, Network 18- Broadcast

Avinash Kaul, who is now the CEO of Network18's TV business, started 26 years back and has become a much sought-after business leader with his proven track record, stature and impact. Avinash also has worked with Nayak at NDTV Media and AIDEM in leadership roles and handled cross-functional responsibilities including Finance, Marketing, Strategy, Business Development, Corporate, Business Planning and overall Admin and HR responsibilities for the company. He worked closely with Nayak too.

He worked closely with Nayak during his Star India days (2001-2002) and also during NDTV (2002-2010).

At Star. he headed the Strategic Planning Division for Star TV's entire Group of channels and was responsible for setting up systems and processes in place for effective utilisation of resources and maximising revenue for the group.

Vikas Khanchandani, Country Head, DistroScale

Vikas Khanchandani, Country Head of DistroScale, Inc. was also associated with NDTV and Aidem Ventures around the same time as Nayak. 

His LinkedIn stated, “Beginning at STAR India, I collaborated closely with leadership on sales and marketing strategies for the STAR Network. This laid the foundation for pioneering ventures like NDTV Media Ltd., where I partnered with Mr. Raj Nayak to achieve significant growth, establishing the commercial arm of NDTV as a leader in the news genre.”

Continuing this trajectory, he co-founded and led initiatives at AIDEM, developing an independent media services business and weathering entrepreneurial challenges to establish a technology-driven ad delivery service. 

Joy Chakraborty 

Joy Chakraborty is another CEO and Business leader who has had a career alongside Nayak and has then independently grown in stature and impact.  

Chakraborty took over as Zee Media’s Chief Business Officer in August 2022 and retained the role even after the restructuring of Zee Media Corp in November 2022.

He has close to three decades of experience in media. He is a Harvard alumnus and has held leadership positions at TV18 and the Times of India Group.

Ashish Sehgal, Chief Growth Officer, Digital & Broadcast Revenue, ZEEL.

Another media maverick is Ashish Sehgal who is currently the Chief Growth Officer, Digital & Broadcast Revenue at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited and worked with Nayak in the past during his Star India days, around 2000-2002.

At Star TV, he was at a National Head level and was a part of the overall launch project of Star Gold, before managing the overall network’s sales.

Sehgal is an experienced Media & Entertainment industry leader with a demonstrated history of delivering outsized revenue growth. He held various leadership positions in my more than two-decade long media career with the last 11 years at a CXO level.

Niraj Dutt, Business Advisor

Niraj Dutt, currently a business advisor, too has known Nayak since Star TV days in 1999. They even moved to NDTV after their stint together at Star. Dutt spearheaded sales and revenue functions for all channels of Star TV Network and developed value propositions for Star niche channels and National Geographic Channel. 

At NDTV, Dutt was responsible for developing brand value and revenue strategy for all NDTV Network channels along with a focused presence in new media as its COO, when Nayak was CEO.

Viral Jani,  Chief Revenue Officer, Universal Music Group

During 2004-2010 at NDTV, Viral Jani worked with Nayak. He was instrumental in providing key insights to facilitate business decisions at both macro and micro levels and deploying relevant Decision Support Systems and Reports. 

He is currently the Chief Revenue Officer of Universal Music Group since February 2003, where he drives strategic partnerships and fosters innovations in collaboration with future-forward tech players in core spaces like music tech and AI, and adjacent spaces like content tech and creator ecosystems.

Jaani worked on several projects entailing all aspects of Media & Broadcast business such as Content Planning & Strategy, Revenue management & Sales planning, TV Audience Measurement, Marketing, Promotions & Distribution planning.

Anuj Dahiya, Global Head of Agency Ecosystem (Media, Creative & Production), Mondelez International

Anuj Dahiya, who is currently associated with Mondelez as their Global Head of Agency Ecosystem (Media, Creative & Production), worked under Nayak at NDTV around 2008 for almost 2 years and his key responsibilities included driving the overall P/L of the online team as a whole, planning and developing strategies and processes for increased revenue from key clients.

He gave the Microsoft Advertising (MA) business growth of 38% vis-à-vis market growth of 23% in India and established the BD team (17 members) across the country in all metros with a clear focus on driving business from large corporations.

He is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry. He is a strong professional skilled in Digital Strategy, Integrated platform marketing and more.

Hemant Arora, Global Head of Accounts- Europe, METAP & APAC, TikTok

The present Global Head of Accounts- Europe, METAP & APAC at TikTok, Hemant Arora, also worked closely during Nayak’s tenure at NDTV from 2003 to 2010, where Arora was a key member of the Management team responsible for steering the company growth and vision and managing multiple portfolios in the capacity of Sr. Vice President at NDTV Media. He joined as Manager and Regional head - West and a member of the founding team when NDTV launched the first true blue Indian news channels. 

Additionally, Arora was responsible for setting up new markets, developing new revenue verticals and turning around fledgling revenue practices while holding key positions in the company over 8 years (Feb 2003- Dec 2010).

Rohit Gopakumar, CEO, World Wide Media 

A result-oriented Business lead with a creative bend of mind, Rohit Gopakumar worked along with Nayak around the same time as NDTV (2002-10) and Aidem Ventures (2010-11). He was also associated with Star and worked in Nayak’s team for 3 years during 1999-2002. 

Gopakumar has experience in driving and managing P&Ls, change management, people management and business transition by building strong teams with strong capabilities.

Currently, he is the CEO of World Wide Media since August 2023. Additionally, leading teams, delivering stakeholder objectives, disrupting, innovating, disruption management and adapting to evolving markets are qualities honed across the years.

Rajnath Kamath, Director of NC Media Networks

Presently, the Director of NC Media Networks, Rajnath Kamath has known Nayak for years and advises on internal processes, quality and excellence and growth and future products and projects as of now at his current organisation.

For a period during 1993-2001, Kamath and Nayak were also working in the same organisation- Star TV. 

In the past from 2010 to 2013, he was the Group Director-Advertising Sales at Network18  and later joined NDTV Convergence where he was associated for more than three years. 

Shailendra Shetty, National Sales Director- Digital of ABP Network

Shetty has been in the current role for more than 3 years now. In the past, he worked in Nayak’s team at NDTV and Aidem Ventures. At Aidem, he was first the Assistant Vice President and then promoted to VP in 2012

He is a senior Entrepreneurial Executive with extensive experience in strategic business development, digital sales and building a team of out-performers. 

At Aidem, Shetty managed the partner relationship with Microsoft for its digital business and led the operations and campaign delivery for broadcast and digital business.

Whereas, at NDTV, he conceptualised and designed an online application, and was responsible for On-Air traffic management for all NDTV and partner channels like Sahara Network, News24 etc.

Vijay Koshy, President, The Viral Fever 

Vijay Koshy, the President of The Viral Fever, kicked off his career at Star TV where Nayak was too for a long time. Koshy spent nearly 2.5 years of his initial days at Star TV during the early 2000s. 

He has developed monetisation models in the digital media industry for several brands some of which are the biggest media and content companies in India like Star TV, Sony, ESPN, RBNL, Channel V, Arre’ and many more. 

A digital content visionary, he has over two decades of experience across leadership positions along with media planning and buying amongst the top agencies in the country. 

Anju Thakur, Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer at World Wide Media

Thakur, a highly experienced Media Sales & Marketing Executive who has demonstrated the ability to lead diverse teams of professionals to new levels of success in a variety of highly competitive media platforms, worked with Nayak at Star TV during 2001-02 and NDTV during 2003-11.

Currently, she is the Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer at World Wide Media since October 2023.

At NDTV, she was responsible for the All India sales revenues for NDTV Good time (December 2009 till May 2011), NDTV Profit (February 2007 till November 2009) and NDTV 24x7 (January 2003 till February 2007).

At STAR TV, she was responsible for Ad Sales on Star News & National Geographic Channel.

Namrata Tata, Managing Partner and Co-founder, House of Cheer Network 

Tata has stuck around with Nayak the longest. Dating back to Star TV days (2000-03), she is till now the Managing Partner and Co-founder of House of Cheer Network. 

She was a part of the leadership team responsible for the launch of the English Entertainment Business at Viacom18 during 2011-2020 along with Nayak. Tata created and conceptualised India’s first English singing talent hunt, ‘The Stage’. Additionally, Tata Launched Colors Infinity with a revolutionary concept of channel partners.

 She was also the founding member of the NDTV Media team during 2003-2011. Led the advertising sales function in India while managing a large team. Launched the International Sales Vertical for the network. She led the sales and special projects for NDTV 24X7, NDTV India, NDTV Profit, NDTV Good Times, Sahara One, Nickelodeon and MSN

Pavithra KR, Revenue Head, Colors TV (Viacom18) 

Pavithra’s association with Nayak dates back to Star TV days during early 2000’s. Later, she moved to NDTV, then Aidem and finally to Viacom18 as well around the same time as Nayak did. 

In 2011, she started at Colors as Revenue Head of Special Projects. Then moved on to manage Colors SD & HD with a vertical split in markets and has currently been heading Revenue for Colors SD.

In the past at NDTV, she started as Sr Executive of NDTV 24x7, NDTV India and then took on additional responsibility with new launches of NDTV Profit and NDTV Goodtimes.

Later, at Aidem, she managed and successfully turned News 24 and Live India into Revenue positive channels.

Avani Bhanchawat

Avani Bhanchawat, former Vice President and Head of Revenue - Southeast Asia, Hongkong and Taiwan of KC Global Media Asia, has been under the guidance of Nayak since Star TV days in the early 2000s.

Later, she also moved to NDTV during 2003-2007 as their Senior Manager and was then promoted as AVP-Ad Sales Head of NDTV Lifestyle from 2007 to 2010.

She successfully managed ad sales, ad operations subscription sales and channel distribution teams working with pay TV operators, telcos and streaming platforms in the Asia Pacific region.

Legacy of Raj Nayak continues

Nayak has worked with and inspired media veterans like Kaul, Dutt, Dahiya, Sehgal, Khanchandani, Arora and many more immensely. 

In 2016, he received the first "Influencer of the Year Award" from Exchange4Media and the International Advertising Association India Chapter's Media Person of the Year award at the IAA Leadership Awards. He was presented with the International Advertising Association's "Global Champion Award" in Bucharest in 2018. 

His work in media and branding earned him the Society Achiever of the Year honor. Amity International's Humanitarian Award in recognition of his social issue work. For his services to the entertainment industry, he received the Giant International Award. The International Advertising Agencies has recognized him in the IAA Hall of Fame. 

Apart from driving such an enormous business, this chief is passionate about food, travel and reading. 

He is revered and loved by all in the industry. Nayak lives in Mumbai with his wife, his younger daughter and his dogs. His older daughter is married and is in the USA and is well settled after her doctorate. His legacy in the industry is the goodwill he has created and the leaders that have grown alongside him.