Digital Media India 2023

Shanth Kumar has been a printing technologist, editor and director with The Printers Mysore since 1983. He has driven the editorial coverage at Prajavani and helped it retain a leadership position in Karnataka over the last decade.

Fernando de Yarza is the President of Henneo, a news media group that includes 20 minutes and Heraldo de Aragon (Zaragoza, Spain). He is Vice-President at the Spanish Association of Information Media (AMI). Fernando de Yarza López-Madrazo was elected President of WAN-IFRA in June 2019.

Lucio Mesquita has over 30 years of media experience, having worked in print, radio, television and digital content production and senior management. He started his career as journalist in his native Brazil before joining the BBC in the UK, where he worked with radio, tv and digital output both in editorial and executive roles. At the BBC, he ran the BBC World Service’s Americas and Europe operations, the BBC’s regional operations in Bristol and BBC Monitoring, the BBC’s ‘media watch’ unit with over 10 newsrooms worldwide, which included a number of digital and transformation projects. Before joining Innovation as a senior consultant, Lucio also ran Guardian Media Limited, a commercial multimedia business in the Caribbean, with print, digital, radio and television output. For Innovation, Lucio has been involved with projects involving major media businesses in Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, developing with them and supporting them with their transformation plans.

Saemmool Lee is the Head of Digital Innovation of the Dong-A Ilbo in Seoul. Ms. Lee directs digital strategies and leads major initiatives for both the newsroom and business side. She received a B.A. in journalism from Korea University, and earned a master’s degree in journalism from University of California, Berkeley. She is an award-winning journalist and published author.

Bharat Gupta is the Chief Executive Officer of Jagran New Media, the digital wing of India’s largest print and radio publisher group, Jagran Prakashan Ltd. With more than 22 years of stellar experience to his credit, Bharat has been at the helm of managing and turning around diverse media businesses across print, radio, ground activation & digital. With over 100 million users, JNM is amongst the Top Internet Media Groups in India.

Mr. Navaneeth, worked in Mindshare, Jakarta, Indonesia as leader of trading between March 2016 and May 2019 before coming back home to The Hindu Group as CEO from June 2019.  For him, this represents homecoming: he served this organisation between 1998 and 2006 in a senior position in Advertising and Marketing.  Going on to get a diverse media experience in radio, television, media planning and buying, and digital advertising, he brings with him the expertise and hands-on experience to play an effective leadership role in the Company in the face of far-reaching changes and challenges in the media landscape and in an increasingly interconnected digital ecosystem.

Before moving abroad in 2016, Mr. Navaneeth led the programming teams at Sun Tv Network’s Kannada and Telugu language channels as vice president from September 2009-2015. He has also worked with Radio One as station director and head of programming from August 2006-2009.

Mr. Navaneeth, gained varied and useful insights; thanks to working for traditional brands with heritage and enviable lineage, setting up a new business with an entrepreneurial outlook, working with entertainment brands that established market leadership positions in a reasonably short span of time, and being part of businesses where the only constant is change.  He also used his time to consult a couple of startups in the Food and Beverage space.

Mariam Mammen Mathew is the Chief Executive Officer of Manorama Online, the digital media operations of the Malayala Manorama company.

Established in 1888, Malayala Manorama has a daily circulation of 2.31 million and publishes over forty publications. The group also runs Manorama News, a 24-hour news channel, Manorama Max, an entertainment channel, and Radio Mango, FM stations in Kerala.

Malayala Manorama went Online in 1997 and has readers from across the world. With a  traffic of over 36 Million unique visitors a month, ManoramaOnline is the leading Malayalam news website in the country. The news portal comprises of 19+ dedicated channels, from news to movies to technology news and features.

The legion of honours that adorn ManoramaOnline’s mantle shelf including WAN-IFRA South Asian Digital Media Award 2021 for the Best News Website of the Year and INMA Global Media Award 2021 for Best Product and Tech Innovation are testaments to the portal’s high standards of news delivery approach and processes.

ManoramaOnline also has a bouquet of digital classifieds products, including M4marry.com, Helloaddress.com, Quickerala.com, and Manorama Horizon

She is also currently the Vice Chair Person of DNPA (Digital News Publishers’ Association)

Before joining Manorama, she was Vice President at J.P. Morgan Chase in New York, where she was part of the Lab Morgan group that specialized in management consulting for e-businesses.
Prior to this she was a Senior Consultant at the Management Consulting Center at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York. In this role she specialized in developing new products for the bank

With more than 10 years of experience in the online media publishing industry and digital marketing, Swapnil is responsible for spearheading the digital transformations of all digital content publishing properties at Sakal Media. He is an industry leader with knowledge and experience in the fields of digital transformation, digital content-based product development, digital product monetization, and digital marketing.

Prior to joining Sakal, Swapnil worked with ITC and InnoServ Solutions. He brings with him a deep understanding of digital product development and marketing with a distinct sense of digital business transformation and project management.

Swapnil holds a post-graduate diploma in digital transformation and strategy from IIM Kozhikode and a master’s degree in marketing from ISBS, Pune. He also delivers regular guest lectures at renowned institutes on the topic of Digital Transformation and Marketing.

Ritu Kapur is the managing director and CEO of Quint Digital Media Limited which runs The Quint, an independent news site in India. She has strived to provide multiple platforms for free speech like

Nikhil Pahwa is an entrepreneur, journalist and activist. He is the Founder and Editor of MediaNama, a leading publication chronicling the evolution of digital policy in India.

Pahwa led the Savetheinternet.in campaign for Net Neutrality in India, He also co-founded the Internet Freedom Foundation, which focuses on advocacy for digital rights in India.

Pahwa’s columns have appeared in Foreign Policy, Rest of the World, Quartz, Wired (UK), the Times of India, Bloomberg Quint, The Indian Express, The Quint, Scroll.in, The Wire, Hindustan Times, the Hindu, The Economic Times, Mint, among several other publications. He also regularly appears on national and international TV channels on issues related to the governance of the Internet, including CNBC-TV18, ET Now, CNN-IBN, NDTV, and Al Jazeera English.

Pahwa has been on the jury for Forbes India’s 30 under 30 award, Outlook Magazines OSM awards, Mozilla’s Equal Rating Challenge 2016 and several editions of the Mbillionth Awards for mobile innovation in South Asia.

Pahwa also authored a chapter on digital issues in the book “How Liberal is India”.

Nandagopal Rajan is Editor New Media and Business Head at IndianExpress.com, one of the largest online news media groups in India. He has been a journalist for over two decades and a writer for more. He not only helped bring about more synergy between the print and digital editions of The Indian Express, but also evolved new storytelling methods and added new sections such as Technology and Lifestyle. He also conceptualised and launched four digital editions including ieMalayalam, ieTamil, ieBangla and more recently ieGujarati. He writes on technology, gadgets and everything related. His podcast Our Own Devices gives listeners an insight into latest trends in the world of tech, as explained by the biggest names in the industry. He has worked with the India Today Group and Hindustan Times and is an alumnus of Calicut University and Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal.

Deepit Purkayastha is the Co-founder of Inshorts and Public app. Deepit, a Computer Science and Engineering graduate from IIT Kharagpur, started building Inshorts in the final year long with Azhar Iqubal and Anunay Arunav Pandey, Inshorts is India’s highest-rated and #1 short news app, with more than 10 million+ active users. Inshorts became operationally profitable within 5 years of starting and is trusted by over 1000+ brands for award-winning marketing campaigns and content partnerships. After the success of the Inshorts App, the company also launched Public app, a hyperlocal social media with an aim to connect the local communities of Bharat and become the one stop solution for all their local needs.

Currently, Public App is India’s largest platform for hyperlocal content with 50 million+ active users and 2 million+ videos being created every month. Inshorts has raised of from investors including Vy capital, A91 Partners, SIG, Addition, Tiger Global and Tanglin Venture Partners. He is responsible for overseeing Product, Data and Strategy in the company. He has also made it to Forbes Asia ’30 Under 30′- Media, Marketing and Advertising list for 2018 and Forbes India ’30 Under 30’’ list for 2016.

Innovation is the core of our DNA at Inshorts. Both Inshorts and Public apps were ideated and built to address significant gaps in quality and relevance in the Indian digital information delivery market. While both products were built for India, we believe they are globally scalable use cases with significant international appeal. Inshorts as a company is at an inflection point where our next stage of growth will be much faster and steeper while maintaining our robust profitability profile.

Pradeep Gairola is VP & Business Head for The Hindu Group . He has over 25 yrs of rich experience wherein he has been mostly associated with News and EdTech. Before joining The Hindu, he had worked on building subscription business for EdTech start-ups for about six years.

He started his digital journey in 1997, when internet was just making its presence felt in the world and Google was yet not launched, since then, he has worked with five startups, to learn the art and science of building businesses. His experiments with digital subscription, started in 2012, which was about one year after NY Times launched its digital subscriptions and when digital subscriptions were still in early stages of development, since then, he has been learning this evolving field, that is now widely being adopted by various industries including Publishing, FMCG, CD, Software, Fitness, Education, Apparel, Entertainment etc. His expertise lies in transforming legacy businesses to digital and in scaling up businesses

Kaythaya oversees SPH Media’s technology, product, and data capabilities as Chief Technology Officer, where he drives product innovation and the digital transformation agenda.  He is responsible for defining the technology roadmap and building the foundations of how SPH delivers news and engages audiences across it’s portfolio of media assets.

Jabed is a Growth hacking Digital Marketer, Digital media business lead and youth leader. Currently he is the chief Digital Business Officer at Prothom Alo, the largest digital media portfolio of Bangladesh which enjoys over 70% of the total revenue coming from Portal and App based Advertisement among all local publishers.  He has been growing with this influential media brands for last 15 years.

As the business lead, Jabed is working on a once in a lifetime opportunity, to redefine the digital media business landscape of Bangladesh. He is an experienced digital leader with a proven track record in using strategic thinking to deliver growth in a complex organisation.

Jabed Has stabilised, Re-invented, extended & diversified the business unit which resulted significant profitability, market share and brand dominance.

At Prothom Alo Digital, He leads ventures in Web, App, News, Video and OTT, e-commerce, VAS, IVR, Ad Tech, Digital Media Buying, ePaper, eMagazine and more, reaching over 20 million consumers a month only through their own platforms. Which Made Prothom Alo the largest Bengali digital media companies of the world.

Throughout the way Jabed has been leading numerous community and voluntary platforms in both local and international level. He represented Bangladesh in the world’s top leadership & knowledge sharing conference in Silicon Valley where his leadership model was instigated globally after it was showcased in front of Google’s Developer community leaders from 110 countries.

Hanna Israel is head of ZEIT ONLINE‘s political dialogue platform My Country Talks that sets up one-on-one discussions between people with completely different views. Since 2017, more than 200.000 people worldwide have signed up to have a personal discussion with a complete stranger. Before ZEIT ONLINE, Hanna Israel worked as a freelance journalist and moderator, editor for the leading German quality TV talk format Anne Will and founded the online magazine InPerspective. She studied political science and international relations in Maastricht and Berlin and has worked and lived in Madrid, Brussels and Washington D.C.

Nagaraj Nagabushanam is the Vice President – Data and analytics at The Hindu. Nagabushanam directs a data and insights group to build and implement data systems and pipelines for data-driven decision-making in the newsroom, product, business, and technology functions. Prior to this, he was a Director of Digital & Data at News Corp Technology Services,  where he headed the Digital and Data practices, this role involves scoping projects for transition, managing the transition, standing up the teams required, and scaling the teams at appropriate times. He also managed the teams from capabilities, talent, performance, rewards & recognition, and career growth standpoints. 

Saurabh Dwivedi is the Founding Editor of The Lallantop, India’s most popular vernacular digital-first news venture known for its political coverage and new-age writing style. He is also the editor of India Today Magazine-Hindi.  Currently, Saurabh hosts popular shows- The Lallantop Show- a daily prime time news bulletin, Duniyadaari- show on international affairs, and Netanagri- which is a weekly roundup of politics. He also hosts the weekly unconventional interview- Guest in the Newsroom. Audiences wait excitedly for these videos and the channel has a reach of 40+ million online. He is also known for his extensive election coverage across India & Jamghat, an exclusive political interview series which has garnered millions of views.

Hailing from Orai, a small city of Uttar Pradesh, Saurabh completed his early education at Saraswati Shishu Vihar in Orai. Post his graduation, he joined JNU where he completed his Masters in Hindi literature and M-Phil in Literature on 1857 then went on to pursue mass communication at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication.

With over 15 years in the field of Journalism, his journey began with NavBharat times. He then moved on to Dainik Bhaskar as News Editor and in 2013 he joined The India Today Group. A firm believer in experimenting with new ideas, he takes on challenges fearlessly and founded The Lallantop in 2016.

Along with journalism, he also actively engages with the youth of our nation by speaking at various events at prestigious institutions like the IIMs and IITs and is also a TedX speaker, he was also part of Harvard India Conference.

He has been instrumental in changing the landscape of news, offering audiences an alternate to television by establishing a credible medium via The Lallantop.

Shelly Walia has been a journalist for more than 13 years – out of which nine have been spent in newsrooms of digital media companies. She’s currently the Executive Editor at the Indian digital-first media company, The Quint, where she closely interfaces with editors and reporters as well as the marketing team to strategise and execute successful membership campaigns, including daily and special newsletters. She’s keen to learn and understand ways to practise sustainable journalism in the digital era where editorial and product viability find the perfect balance.

Prior to The Quint, Shelly worked as a reporter at the American digital media company, Quartz, and as a senior sub-editor in one of India’s largest financial dailies, Business Standard. She is an alumnus of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, New York. Shelly loves exploring social media tools – especially the ones that are available for free.

Lal Chand Bisu is the co-founder and CEO at Kuku FM. He was previously the co-founder of EasyPrep, building an ed-tech platform providing affordable education to the Indian masses in regional languages. He took a successful exit from EasyPrep when it was acquired by Toppr.com (now part of Byju’s). Bisu completed his Bachelor’s of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur in 2012

Brut India is an independent digital video publisher dedicated to covering the world’s largest democracy. As VP & Editor-in-Chief of Brut India, Mehak Kasbekar leads a team of media professionals, producing compelling journalism in new formats and bringing stories from across the country to audiences in India and around the world. A Columbia University graduate, Mehak has closely witnessed and reported on India’s evolution over the last two decades across business, policy, politics, and society through her stories. She has worked with multiple media formats, from wire-agency to television, and from print to digital news publishing.

Dr. Konstantinos Zachos is Chief Technology Officer of CebAI, the National Centre for Creativity enabled by AI, at the Bayes Business School at City, University of London. He is also co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at JECT.AI. Konstantinos has been involved in research and development in the areas of computer science and creativity with a focus on designing and developing digital creativity tools to reinforce learning in creative problem solving and enhance creativity in sectors from journalism and manufacturing to social care and elite sports training.

Nivash Jeevanandam is a senior research writer at INDIAai (Govt. of India), the National AI Portal of India, and NASSCOM. He is a senior researcher and seasoned technology journalist who writes about everything from data science to machine learning and artificial intelligence. He looks at trends, problems, ideas, and changes in the industry. He writes stories about the AI landscape in India and around the world, with a focus on the long-term impact on individuals and society.

Vivek Pandey is the Vice President – Revenue Strategy, Times Internet Ltd. He is a graduate of the prestigeous Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. With a focus on technology, data analytics, process excellence, risk/cost management, marketing, and lead generation, at Times Internet, he leads a team dedicated to transforming and enabling ad-sales.

In addition to this, he is responsible for managing the martech stack and overseeing the group’s 3-5 year strategic roadmap. He also plays a crucial role in high-level CXO initiatives. Before joining his current position, he served as the Head of Products at Tata CLiQ, honing his expertise in the e-commerce sector.

Ola’s career at Svenska Dagbladet (a major Swedish news brand within the Schibsted Media Group) started in the newsroom. During his 20 years at the newspaper he managed many projects during the

Boby is heading the Marketing, Revenues & Partnerships for ManoramaOnline News Products for the last 9 years. He comes with a
well-rounded experience across the digital media ecosystem, having worked with Agencies, Ad-Networks & Publishers.

He is an established speaker in the Indic Language space, curates ManoramaOnline Technology Summit “Techspectations” and played a pivotal part in conceptualizing & executing the first ever digital publisher alliance in India SPP – South Premium Publishers. He has been featured on E4M Impact Money Makers Special & Adgully Powerful Influencers List in the recent past.

He had built his career having worked with large media companies like Tata Press, Times of India & Percept in a career spanning more than 23 years.

Yudhvir Mor is the Chief Product & Technology Officer of HT Media Ltd. Previously he was the Country Manager & Vice President – Engineering with Zoura, and has worked with other organisations including Genpack, Xerox, Johnson & Johnson, HP and IBM.

Yudhvir holds a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Engineering from Kurukshetra University and holds a Certificate Program in Business Analytics, Data Science, AI, Machine Learning, Business Statistics, Python, R, Business Analytics & Actions from Indian School of Business.

Janni has over 15 years of experience in news, digital media, and design management. He is a champion of making information and technology accessible – utilizing his expertise to transform difficult user journeys into seamless, easy-to-use experiences. He has a proven track record of driving innovation and staying ahead of the curve in a constantly evolving industry.

In his previous role as Chief Design Officer for an AI startup, Janni played a key role in the company’s growth from a team of 10 to 100 employees. He is now focused on product development, artificial intelligence, digital strategy, and product management at VG, Norway’s premier news source.

VG has been at the forefront of the digital transition since its online launch in 1995. With over half of the Norwegian population visiting vg.no daily, innovation in news experience has been a critical driver of their continued growth and success.

He started his career in 1990, his impressive and successful sales background ranges from print advertising to the Internet. Sriram has worked with Sesa Seat Information Systems Ltd., The Times of India group and Indiainfo.com. Sriram, was responsible for spearheading the Times Internet Ltd at Bangalore in 1996 when the Internet was an unknown medium. He joined Indianinfo.com Ltd. in the year 2000 and was part of the core team which held Indiainfo.com together during the days of the dotcom bust in 2000 and its subsequent significant growth from the year 2001 to early 2006.

Priyanka is a media professional with over 15 years of experience in the industry. Having worked with brands like India Today she has a strong background in print media and has also held leadership positions in the digital realm. Since joining Times Internet in 2019, she has taken on the responsibility of leading the company’s Non-News business across India.

Siddharth Varadarajan is the Founding Editor of The Wire, started in 2015. Previously, he was the Editor of The Hindu. A trained economist, he studied at the London School fo Economics and Columbia University and taught at New York University before returning to India to work as a journalist. He has been a visiting lecturer at the journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley and a Poynter Fellow at Yale University.

Sohini Guharoy is the head – audience growth & platforms at Network 18. Sohini drives an integrated engagement and content strategy to accelerate audience engagement and revenue growth on platforms. She was earlier with NDTV and The Quint.