JioStar's Malayalam business to be headed by Kishan Kumar

Kishan Kumar has been delegated with the responsibility of JioStar’s Malayalam business across platforms. This recruitment comes after the successful establishment of a joint venture between Reliance Industries Limited, Viacom18 Media, and The Walt Disney Company.

He is MICA graduate and communication professional with 20 years of experience in strategic planning, business development, trading, new media, product development and talent management.

Previously, Kumar was the Executive Director of Channel Business Asianet for Disney Star for more than two years.

During September 2020 to March 2022, he led the Wavemaker South business across Bangalore, Chennai, Kerala & Hyderabad. Part of the team that also created business impacting work for key clients like Titan Company, Britannia, Tata Global Beverages, Google India, Wipro Consumer Care and more.

Kumar was also one of the key architects in building Maxus, the biggest media agency in South India. Here, he spent more than a decade leading Maxus Vietnam, among the top 5 in the APAC region and focussed on P&L, people, product and profile management. 

During his tenure at Maxus, he also did AOR Management, client delight, thought leadership, profitability, business development and talent management. He was responsible for the next phase of geographical expansion in the South. As a part of Maxus India Mancom, he focussed on revenue management, agency visioning, mentoring and coaching.

He started his stint with Maxus in 2004 as a media planner on clients like Himalaya, MTR. 

With Reliance holding a 56% majority stake, the joint venture merges the media assets of Viacom18, JioCinema, and Star India, forming a media conglomerate valued at approximately Rs 70,352 crore (US$8.5 billion). Backed by an investment of Rs 11,500 crore (US$1.4 billion) from Reliance, the new entity will operate 100 TV channels, produce over 30,000 hours of content annually, and reach a digital subscriber base of more than 50 million