Avinash Kaul: The media veteran’s new milestone - 'The Next Mountain'

Avinash Kaul, who most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Broadcast & Publishing at Network18 and Managing Director of A+E Networks at TV18, turns a year older today. And few people in Indian broadcasting have earned a birthday as richly as he has.

With a career spanning over 28 years, Kaul built his reputation on a combination of strategic rigour, audience intelligence, and the kind of revenue discipline that turns channel groups into empires. At Network18, he oversaw 21 news channels in 18 languages, including CNN News18, CNBC TV18, News18 India, History TV18, and Forbes India. That is not a portfolio you manage. That is one you command.

Read more on Avinash Kaul exiting Network18  

Before Network18, Kaul held senior positions across IBN News Network, the Times Group, Sahara One, NDTV, Star India, Discovery Communications, and Mindshare. This career trajectory reads less like a resume and more like a masterclass in how Indian media has evolved over two decades. He joined Network18 in May 2014 as CEO of the then IBN News Network, subsequently taking on the roles of President and Chief Operating Officer before assuming his final mandate as CEO of Broadcast & Publishing.

He left on March 31, 2026, after nearly 12 years. And he did not leave quietly. In a farewell post that circulated widely, Kaul chose not to speak about ratings or revenue. He spoke about the security guards who greeted him every morning. The fleet drivers. The admin teams who held things together invisibly. "No one reaches a summit alone," he wrote. "The people whose names will never appear in a media story about Network18 — they are the ones who built it with me, one invisible brick at a time." It was the kind of exit statement that said more about his leadership than any award citation could.

What comes next is, by his own telling, the most personal project of his career. A biography, written by Priya Kumar  and to be published by Harper Collins, is expected to release in the first week of June. Kaul describes it as a traversal of his journey "from Kashmir till the top of the corporate summit," one that begins with being forced to leave home at 17, living in garages, studying in tents, with, as he puts it, "zero privilege, no mentors, no guides." The book, titled 'The Next Mountain', will draw a deliberate parallel between mountain climbing and corporate climbing. "I didn't have any benchmarks on what is a good age to be a CEO, because I had not read any of those self-help books or any McKinsey models or any Michael Porter's frameworks," he said. "So I didn't know that you're supposed to become a CEO by 45. Because I didn't know, I walked faster, I climbed faster, I failed 10,000 times, but I stood every time back up again."

He started his corporate journey in 1998 and became a CEO for the first time in January 2010 at the age of 36, among the youngest in Indian media. He has held the designation for 16 years since. The book, he says, is aimed squarely at those without elite pedigrees. From there to leading CNBC TV18, Forbes India, and ET Now is not a straight line. It is, as the title suggests, a mountain. "It's just your own belief," he said, "that limits you from moving ahead."