RIL-Disney JV: Key faces of the JioStar leadership

The much-anticipated Reliance-Disney joint venture (JV), combining entertainment giants Star, Colors, JioCinema, and Hotstar, has announced its leadership structure. This newly formed entity aims to redefine India’s media and entertainment landscape with a strong leadership team led by industry stalwarts.

Top leadership

At the helm of the JV are Nita Ambani, serving as Chairperson, and Uday Shankar as Vice Chairperson. They will be supported by three CEOs driving operations: Kevin Vaz, overseeing entertainment; Kiran Mani, heading digital operations; and Sanjog Gupta, managing sports. Together, this trio will craft the transformative vision for the JV.

Entertainment leadership under Kevin Vaz

Kevin Vaz will lead the entertainment division, supported by key cluster heads. 

Krishnan Kutty will oversee the South cluster, managing regional languages like Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam, alongside digital and business planning led by Himabindu Chitta and Prachi Mohapatra.

Alok Jain will manage Colors, Digital Hindi, niche content, movies, and studio businesses. His team includes executives like Vivek Srivastava (Hindi Specials), Arnab Das (Linear TV, Colors Rishtey), Rohan Lavsi (Hindi Movies), and Anu Sikka (Kids & Infotainment). Shital Iyer (Non-fiction content) and Ajit Andhare (Studio business) round out the team, with Prachi Sahay handling business planning.

Sumanta Bose will lead Star Plus, Star Bharat, and regional channels (Bengali, Marathi, and Gujarati). His team includes Deepak Chhabria (Star Plus), Harsh Sheth (Star Bharat), Koustuvi Ghosh (Star Jalsha), and others managing Colors Bangla, Gujarati, and Marathi businesses.

In addition, Piyush Goyal heads TV distribution, working with Sumit Grover on Cable and DTH and Amit Shah on Linear TV Distribution and Sports.

Revenue and international operations

Ajit Varghese, as Head of Revenue, Entertainment & International, will manage client engagement, digital growth, and agency relationships. His team includes leaders like Mahesh Shetty (LCS client engagement) and Kingshuk Mitra (Agency Relationships).

Digital leadership under Kiran Mani

Kiran Mani will spearhead the digital strategy, with Ishan Chatterjee focusing on sports revenue, SMB growth, and creator initiatives. Supporting him are Anup Govindan (Cricket Revenue), Arup Bansal (PRS and Brand Solutions), and Kanishk Khanna (Creator Business).

Sports leadership

Under Sanjog Gupta will be Anup Govindan for managing Cricket (LCS) revenue across platforms, Arup Bansal, leading PRS and Brand Solutions, including revenue strategy for Sports LCS and SMB and Sunil Pasricha as the Head of Sports Revenue Operations across TV & Digital.

Anup Govindan, Arup Bansal and Sunil Pasricha will be reporting to Ishan Chatterjee along with a dotted line to Sanjog Gupta.

While Siddharth Sharma will be leading Audience engagement, viewership and monetisation initiatives for Sports, Prashant Khanna has been given the responsibility of sports production services to all consumer functions & production technology. Mallika Petkar’s role will entail Business, consumer acquisition and distribution strategy for Sports and Harry Griffith gets Global licensing and syndication revenues across international markets.

Damyant K Singh, will be in charge of the Portfolio of Sports Brand & Community and Cricinfo, Vikram Passi, overall marketing to drive reach and growth across screens, and Anupam Goswami will be Business Head of Mashal and League Chairman.

Hursh Shrivastava will manage partnerships, with Aditya Jhamb focusing on app distribution and Namita Sankhe handling partner marketing. Meanwhile, Sushant Sreeram will lead marketing, and Gaurav Gokhale will drive digital strategy and operations.

Strategic and support roles

Several critical roles will drive the JV’s strategic and operational framework. Ambuj Kashyap will work directly with Uday Shankar on strategic initiatives. Bharath Ram (Head of Product), Akash Saxena (Head of Technology), Shoury Bharadwaj (Head of Engineering), and Vijay Seshadri (Chief Architect) will focus on product and technology innovations.

Rishi Gaind (Head of Human Resources) and George Cherian (Head of Corporate Communications & PR) will jointly report to Kevin Vaz and Kiran Mani. Sandeep Jain, as Head of Commercials, completes the leadership team.

This comprehensive leadership structure positions the Reliance-Disney JV at a vantage point to leverage its vast content portfolio, innovative strategies, and market expertise to dominate India’s media and entertainment industry.