Star India on Wednesday (13 April) elevated Uday Shankar to the newly created position of ‘Chairman and CEO’ from his earlier designation of ‘CEO’. Simultaneously, Sanjay Gupta, the current COO, was moved up to Managing Director-Star India. K Madhavan will be Managing Director-South. Both Gupta and Madhavan will continue to report to Uday Shankar, a press release from the company said. The elevation of both Shankar and Gupta is seen as a consolidation of the leadership the duo has provided to Star India for nearly a decade. Media industry circles see the move as recognition of Star’s rapid growth in India on the back of sports and diversified entertainment programming to make it the largest media company in the subcontinent. It is expected to log over $1.25 billion revenue for financial year 2015-16. Star claims leadership position with a 23 percent network share in the broadcasting industry. A company statement said, “these changes position the organization to meet its future growth ambitions on the back of a decade of rapid growth.” Heaping praise on the current Star leadership, James Murdoch, Chief Executive Officer of holding company 21st Century Fox, said “Uday, Sanjay, Madhavan and the entire STAR India team have built a world-class business that has grown at double the industry rate. We are proud of its success and look forward to the next chapter of growth under Uday’s transformational leadership.” The company also announced it was reorganising the company into several verticals called ‘business units’ with a CEO reporting to Sanjay Gupta in charge of each division. These include Amit Chopra, CEO of Entertainment, which spans drama and movie channels; Nitin Kukreja, CEO of Sports, which covers a portfolio of channels under the Star Sports banner; Ajit Mohan, CEO of Digital, which oversees Hotstar; and Vijay Singh, CEO of Fox Star Studios, which produces and distributes Bollywood and regional films. Kevin Vaz has been appointed as CEO of South, reporting to K Madhavan. The South business unit incorporates all of Star's business interests in the Southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The company is also setting up a pan-India Content Studio will be set up to drive cutting edge innovation in programming under Gaurav Banerjee who reports into Sanjay Gupta.
(Source: businessworld.in)
