#e4mExclusive:  HT Media restructures digital leadership

HT Media is undertaking a leadership and structural rejig at its digital news operations, moving to an entity-wise business leadership model amid shifts in audience behaviour, AI-led content consumption and traffic patterns.

An executive close to the development said the restructuring followed the company reaching a certain scale in its digital journey and coincided with the exit of Chief Content Officer Binoy Prabhakar. “The company is gearing up for the next phase of growth. And for the next phase of growth, we have reached a particular scale. With Binoy moving out, it gave us the right opportunity to think about how we are structured and whether we are structured for the future or not,” the executive said.

According to the executive, the changing dynamics around AI and the way digital traffic is shaping up prompted HT Media to move to an entity-wise structure, with separate business heads for its key digital brands.

As part of the change, Paras Sharma has been appointed Business Head for Live Hindustan. Sharma is an internal hire and has been with HT’s digital businesses for over eight years. He is currently Business Head: Digital Content and Syndication at HT Digital Streams, a role he has held since October 2018. Prior to this, he served as Head of Digital Products and earlier as Business Head – Digital at Hindustan Media Ventures, where he was involved in setting up the digital business.

Amrendra Shukla, who was heading digital subscriptions and partnerships, has been named Business Head for livemint.com.

Shukla has been with HT Media Group for over three years and was most recently VP and Business Head – Digital Subscriptions and Partnerships between January 2023 and July 2025, where he built a recurring revenue engine that improved predictability of digital topline by 40 percent.

In July 2025, he took on the role of VP and Business Head – Digital Consumer Revenue, driving P&L and digital revenue transformation across Mint, Hindustan Times and other properties. Before joining HT Media, Shukla worked with Emeritus as Director – Global Growth for its consumer and edtech business.

For Hindustan Times, the company has brought in Nisheeth Upadhyay as the new Business Head. Upadhyay is an external hire and joins from The Print, where he has been Editor (Operations) since January 2023.

An HT alumnus, Upadhyay has spent nearly seven years with Hindustan Times in the past, serving in roles including Production Editor, Assistant Editor, Chief Content Producer and Homepage Editor/Shift Head. He also previously worked as Senior Copy Editor at HT Media Group between 2011 and 2016.

The leadership changes come alongside the exit of Binoy Prabhakar, who announced on LinkedIn that 14 January 2026 marked his last day at Hindustan Times Digital. “It was an absolute honour to lead the digital operations of a 100-year-old publisher. Immensely proud of the work I accomplished together with my colleagues,” Prabhakar wrote.

Prabhakar joined HT as Chief Content Officer in April 2023 and spent close to three years leading digital content operations. Prior to HT, he was Editor at Moneycontrol from March 2020 to April 2023, Editor at CNBCTV18.com between 2018 and 2020, Deputy Executive Editor – Special Projects at Network18, and spent over 11 years at The Economic Times, where he rose to the position of Senior Editor.