Vigyeta Agrawal, Head of Marketing for Jio Cinema’s entertainment division, has decided to move on, according to highly placed sources. Agrawal’s stint at Jio Cinema lasted close to five years, having joined the company in 2019.  

Agrawal led marketing for the entire entertainment vertical and worked on JioCinema’s Women’s Premier League and Indian Premier league campaigns. She was also leading Consumer Insights. 

Prior to joining Viacom18-owned Jio Cinema, Agrawal had a long innings at Amazon, leading platform marketing for their largest category-mobiles & accessories. In the past, she had worked with Fever FM and HT Media.   

e4m reached out to Viacom18 for the official confirmation of the news, but is yet to get a response.

Flipkart has appointed Amrendra Saxena as Director-Customer Loyalty and Retention. According to an update on Saxena’s LinkedIn profile, he took the position in September 2023. Saxena was earlier Associate Director- Customer Loyalty and Retention.

Saxena has been associated with the company for more than eight years now, having joined the e-commerce platform as a Management Trainee in 2015.

Before this, he was with Rabobank and Infosys.

Amit Jain has been elevated as Head of Marketing Operations-APeC at Volvo Cars Malaysia.

He was earlier Head of Hub operations - APeC.

Jain has been associated with Volvo Cars since 2017. He was with Volvo Car India for five years too.

Prior to Volvo, he was Deputy General Manager with Mercedes-Benz India and before that he was with Ford Motor Company.

ABP Group has appointed Yash Mehta as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the education division of Ananda Publishers. Operating from Delhi, Yash will assume responsibility for overseeing all educational entities within the ABP Group.

Prior to joining the ABP Group, he served as the Executive Director at Oxford University Press (OUP), where he held the position for five years. Before that, Yash served as the country lead at Macmillan Education India, where he spearheaded Macmillan's education business in India and neighbouring markets such as Sri Lanka, Bhutan, the Middle East, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Yash's career exemplifies extensive experience and leadership in the education industry.

On the appointment of Yash Mehta, Dhruba Mukherjee, Director of Ananda Publishers, expressed, “We were looking for an individual with a rich and diverse industry experience, having a vision for the future and a passion to win. Yash brings on the table all this and more. He leads from the front and under his leadership we expect our education businesses to grow in scale, size and impact.”

Yash Mehta stated, “I am greatly looking forward to this important next chapter. This is a critical time for the publishing industry, where the needs are changing at an unprecedented pace. The release of the NEP 2020 and the NCF 2023 coupled with emerging technologies and changing demands in education present new challenges and opportunities that require us to adapt and evolve. Keeping up with the increasingly dynamic needs of education will require decisiveness in planning and implementing strategic initiatives. This platform will provide me an opportunity to realize my potential in delivering educational solutions for an enduring positive impact on society. I will work towards the growth and success of the group and the satisfaction of all the stakeholders.”

KN Shanth Kumar of The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd was on Friday elected Chairman of the Press Trust of India's Board of Directors for a one-year term.

Shanth Kumar's election took place at a meeting of PTI's Board of Directors following their Annual General Meeting at the news agency's headquarters in New Delhi.

The Board also elected Praveen Someshwar, the CEO of Hindustan Times, as the Vice-Chairman. Shanth Kumar replaces Aveek Sarkar, who served as Chairman for two consecutive terms.

"It is a privilege to be at the helm of PTI at a time when it is going through an exciting transformation, particularly after it recently launched the video service," said Shanth Kumar.

Shanth Kumar, 62, has been involved in the management of The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd in various roles since 1983. He was also Chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), a member of the Executive Committee of the Indian Newspaper Society(INS) for more than 20 years. This is the second time that he is serving as the Chairman of the Board of PTI, the last time being 2013 to 2014.

"PTI is fortunate to have someone of Shanth Kumar's calibre at the helm. His understanding of the legacy newspaper business and the new-age digital news ecosystem will be of immense benefit to the news agency," said Vijay Joshi, PTI's CEO and Editor-in-Chief.

The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd publishes English daily Deccan Herald, Kannada language daily Prajavani, Sudha and Mayura newspapers from its headquarters in Bengaluru.

Shanth Kumar has a keen interest in sports and photography. He has covered several Olympic Games since 1988 as an accredited photographer, besides several other sporting events.

Someshwar is a veteran FMCG industry executive with a career spanning nearly three decades in planning and executing strategies. Before joining Hindustan Times, he led PepsiCo's business in the food and beverage sector across Asia. Previously based in Hong Kong, he managed all PepsiCo businesses across Asia, excluding China and India.

Press Trust of India is the country’s largest and oldest private news agency. It was founded two weeks after Independence in 1947 by a group of newspapers, which also own it. The shareholders, however, receive no part of the company’s profits, which go back towards the development and modernisation of the news agency.

Besides Shanth Kumar, Someshwar and Sarkar, the 16-member PTI Board also includes Vijay Kumar Chopra (Punjab Kesari), Vineet Jain (Times of India), N. Ravi (The Hindu), Viveck Goenka (the Express Group), Mahendra Mohan Gupta (Dainik Jagran), Riyad Mathew (Malayala Manorama), M.V. Shreyams Kumar (Mathrubhumi), L. Adimoolam (Dinamalar), Hormusji N. Cama (Bombay Samachar), eminent economist Prof. Deepak Nayyar, former Foreign Secretary and NSA Shivshankar Menon, veteran journalist and former Chairman of Business Standard T.N. Ninan and former Executive Director of Tata Sons Ltd. R. Gopalakrishnan.

Bharat Media & Entertainment Group, an integrated media & creative agency, has appointed Aatif Ali as the Business Lead- East. In this role, he will be responsible to carve out the next phase of growth for the Eastern India region.

Prior to joining BMEG, Aatif worked as Manager – Sales at Affinity Inc. (mCanvas), where he was responsible for revenue generation for the South region and was instrumental in significantly growing the South region + creating & growing top & mid funnel digital business for brands. Aatif is a professional and sales leader with an experience of more than 13 years in marketing, sales & operation.

His prior candidature includes Radio Mirchi, Ananda Bazar Patrika, iCubeswire, Housing.com & Mother Dairy.

Smita Murarka has joined Deloitte as Director.

Prior to this, she was doing brand consultancy work focused on D2C, after her close to 3-year stint with sleep solutions company Duroflex.

Murarka was the Chief Marketing Officer, Corporate & Brands, Digital at Duroflex. She joined the company as VP - Marketing & E-Commerce in Feb 2020. She was a key CXO in transforming a regional offline business in a fragmented industry, into a national omni multi-channel brand. With the digital-first approach under Murarka, Duroflex saw a 2.5X growth within 2 years.

She was also working on martech tools, CDP for consumer engagement, beyond managing full funnel marketing communication.

Before Duroflex, Murarka spent over 6 years at MAS Holdings, where she was the Marketing Head, amante lingerie. She has also worked with brands like the Landmark Group and Lifestyle International.