Imagining the Future

Before Star, Sanjay was the Chief Marketing Officer of Bharti Airtel, running marketing, sales and distribution. Prior to Airtel, Sanjay worked at Hindustan Unilever where he led marketing for two of the company's largest segments, Oral Care and Home Care.

A post graduate from IIM Calcutta, he brings in over 20 years of experience across categories.

Madhavan has been instrumental in transforming Asianet as the undisputed leader in Malayalam by acquiring more than 50 percent of the market share. Under his trusted leadership, the channel has been taken to more than 100 countries.

Madhavan believes in the entrepreneurial culture. His vision has led us to set benchmarks in quality programming in the South, which is now being replicated throughout India. Prior to his media career, Madhavan was into banking and corporate finance. In 1999, he joined Asianet Communications Ltd. as Director and took charge of the company as the MD and CEO in 2000. Madhavan joined Star as South Head in 2008 after Star acquired Asianet. He is also Director of IBF and the President of Kerala Television Federation.

Madhavan's leadership style has proven invaluable in growing the South business of Star.

Prior to joining Star India, Sanjay was Vice President – Service Delivery at Genpact overseeing a team of 300+ employees delivering high end financial operations. He also spent considerable time with GE Capital Services handling various assignments in controllership, financial planning and analysis, acquisition integration, across continents.

Sanjay holds a CA from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

In 2011, Kevin took over the premiere Bengali channel, Star Jalsha as General Manager and catapulted Jalsha into breaking its own ratings record with 'Chalo Paltai'. Kevin moved to lead the English channels cluster in 2013 where his role was to grow the English segment, especially in the light of digitization. Under his leadership, Star Movies Select HD was launched. In 2015, he took on the role of leading Hindi entertainment which includes Star Plus, and Star Utsav. Kevin started his career with The Times Of India Response as Senior Officer in 1992.

Prior to this role, Vijay was President, Strategy & Corporate Development, and was responsible for developing new business strategy and overseeing Star’s joint venture businesses in India. Before joining Star India in April 2007, he was Managing Director - Developing Markets with the Tetley Group, London and was responsible for developing the Tetley brand across emerging markets including Russia, Eastern Europe, South Africa and South Asia. Vijay set up Sony Music Entertainment in India where he was responsible for setting up and then managing the growth plans of Sony’s music business as the Managing Director from 1996 to 2002. Prior to this, he worked with The Unilever Group, Walt Disney Consumer Products and the Tata Group as part of the Tata Administrative Services.

Gautam brings over 20 years of experience in global leadership roles across Asia, Europe and the US in startups and multinational consumer and internet businesses. In his last role as President & CEO of Living Social in the US, he led the turnaround of the business leading to an acquisition by Groupon. Prior to that Gautam spent a decade at eBay in a variety of executive roles based in California. This included leading the global marketing team for eBay’s international business, managing eBay’s multibillion-dollar cross-border business, transforming a global subsidiary company called Shopping.com as CEO into a large ad tech player. Gautam started his career with Procter & Gamble where he was a regional brand manager for detergents based out of India and the Philippines.

Gautam is a passionate sports fan who doesn’t let his limited athletic prowess get in the way of his conviction in the power of sport to inspire and shape future generations. Gautam has an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow and a Bachelor’s in Commerce from Sydenham College, Mumbai.

Amita is an Electronics & Telecom engineer with a specialization in Human Resources from XLRI. Before Star, she has worked in diverse organizations such as Asian Paints, GE Capital, Genpact and MetLife India Insurance. Amita also provides pro-bono support to Care India, an international NGO.

Deepak played a significant role in the digitization of the analog TV industry resulting in unlocking of subscribers and revenues. He was one of the brains behind creating the self-regulatory mechanism for TV content i.e. the The Broadcasting Content Complaints Council (BCCC) for addressing consumer grievances and also preventing the government from censoring television content.

Deepak has been a part of Star’s growth story and the acquisitions of Asianet, ESPN Star Sports, Maa TV, creation of media pro and the launch of Hotstar. Prior to Star, Deepak served as the Head of Legal for eBay India, where he was responsible for managing risk and driving growth of the e-commerce platform. Previously, Deepak was the Senior Legal Counsel at Reliance Infocomm supporting the Broadband & Corporate Wireless division in building a successful business of bundled telecom services.

Deepak is an alumnus of University of Madras and has spent considerable time as a litigation lawyer in Delhi High Court.

Gaurav became the Head of Content Strategy at Star Plus in October 2009 and was responsible for widely popular shows like 'Diya aur Baati Hum' and 'Sasural Genda Phool'. In his earlier years at Star, Gaurav anchored and executive produced Star News’ flagship 9 PM news show, 'Satyamev Jayate'. He was also responsible for launching Star Ananda which became the agenda setting news channel in Bengal. Gaurav believes that good stories provide context. It comes from his experience of being a journalist with Aaj Tak in 2000. As an anchor, he covered the Afghan war and the General Elections.

Gurjeev believes in delivering. He believes that the right mix of people, passion and vision can turn things around and deliver success for a business. In his current role, Gurjeev has created efficiency in the market and improved the business yield. He has also opened new markets with the syndication business and increased the business footprint through deeper reach and new subscribers. Gurjeev moved to London to lead the International Business for Star after a stint at MediaPro India (JV between Star & Zee) as the COO - managing India’s biggest distribution portfolio across 68 channels. In his role at MediaPro, Gurjeev worked with industry stakeholders to address the anomalies of the analog market and doubled the revenue in just three years.

He has played an invaluable role in curbing piracy and accelerating the pace of digitization to bring greater transparency in the business. He is an experienced industry veteran, with 22 years in media across destination channels such as ESPN, Star Sports, Discovery & Sony.

Gurjeev is a mechanical engineer from Delhi College of Engineering and holds an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies. He is also an avid sports player.

Before joining Star, Ipsita was the Chief Commercial Officer of GE South Asia and Greater China where she was responsible for marketing, strategy, new product and solutions, and strategic customer accounts across GE businesses. She led ‘In India for India’ growth programs, sales force effectiveness for the region, and was responsible for GE Bangladesh.

Prior to joining GE, Ipsita was Managing Director, Smart Connected Communities – Emerging Businesses at IBM. Her key responsibilities included developing business opportunities in Emerging Markets with a specific focus on the global, emerging middle class. Ipsita then joined Cisco, where she worked since 2002, bringing multi-faceted experience heading emerging markets strategy, marketing and in building and leading strategic business and consulting competencies at company-wide and regional levels.

Ipsita holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Economics from Columbia University, and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.