Top header Banner
Top header Banner
Middle top Banner

Sanjay Gupta named as Disney-Star India head

The Walt Disney Company has announced a business restructure in Asia, following its completion of its acquisition of 21st Century Fox.

Uday Shankar, who was confirmed as the Asia Pacific and India head in December 2018, selected his leadership team for India as below:

India: Sanjay Gupta will be Country Manager of India and will also have direct responsibility for the studio business in the country

North Asia: Luke Kang will continue to lead the North Asia (Greater China, Japan and Korea) business including direct country management of Mainland China and Japan

Star Regional Media Networks: K Madhavan will lead Star India’s regional language Media Networks

Southeast Asia: Zubin Gandevia, after a long and distinguished career with Fox, has decided to leave the company but has agreed to remain for a period of time to help transition the leadership of media networks in Southeast Asia

Emerging Markets & Content Sales: Amit Malhotra will lead Emerging Markets. He will also lead Content Sales for APAC (except North Asia), with a dual reporting to Janice Marinelli who heads DTCI’s Global Content Sales and Distribution

Middle East: Chafic Najia will be Country Manager of Middle East Media cluster

Australia/New Zealand (ANZ): Kylie Watson-Wheeler will continue to serve as Country Manager of Australian and New Zealand business with direct responsibility for Media Networks and Direct-to-Consumer

Studios APAC: Kurt Rieder will lead the Studio business for APAC (except India). He will work closely with the regional business leaders to drive this business.

– Sanjay Jain, former CFO at Fox’s Star, will lead finance.
– Amita Maheshwari, former head of HR at Star, will lead human resources.
– Anju Jain Kumar, from Disney, will be the chief regional counsel for North Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
– Deepak Jacob, from Star’s legal department, will be the chief regional counsel for India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
– Prateek Garg, previously head of business development and acquisitions at Star, will manage Shankar’s office as head of corporate development.
– Jessica Pouleur, currently VP of strategy and business development at The Walt Disney Company, will lead strategy and business development. She will also take interim responsibility of leading strategy for Southeast Asia.
– Jannie Poon, SVP of corporate affairs and communications at 21st Century Fox, will head corporate communications.

“It is a momentous opportunity to be able to chart the course of The Walt Disney Company in Asia Pacific and Middle East,” Shankar wrote. “While our region is experiencing tremendous change, the common thread that binds it together is the exciting opportunity it presents to build on the great businesses that we have today and create transformational businesses of tomorrow. My endeavor is to build an organization that enables us to take full advantage of this unique opportunity and capitalize on the potential of the great leadership talent that we have in the region.

“We recognize the need for a sharp focus on building deeply local businesses. To achieve this, we are making some changes to the current market structure. This will allow us to serve the strategic agenda in each market and enable our exceptional leaders to build even greater and more successful businesses. Above all, this will facilitate our transformation into a direct-to-consumer company that rests on deep local foundations.”