K U Rao appointed CEO of Siti Cable

Rao, who was with DNA, a Mumbai-based daily newspaper, until recently, has been appointed as CEO, Siti Cable.

K U Rao, erstwhile CEO of Diligent Media Group's daily newspaper DNA, has been appointed CEO of Siti Cable, the multi-system operator of the Essel Group. The news was confirmed to afaqs! by a highly placed industry source.

The move comes close on the heels of the appointment of Bhaskar Das as CEO, news cluster for Zee, including the newspaper DNA.

The Diligent Media Group was launched in 2005 through a 50:50 joint venture between Essel Group and DB Corp. However, Essel Group bought out Dainik Bhaskar's stake in the company. With this development, Essel will establish complete ownership of the daily.

Early last week, afaqs! had reported that Rao will be assigned a senior role in the corporate management of the group.

An MBA in marketing from the Andhra University, Rao began his career at Philips India as area manager, sales, consumer electronics division, in 1983. Six years later, he shifted to Onida as head of sales.

He then moved to Shell International Petroleum as international sales head, car care products in 1994. He stayed with the company for about 12 years and worked in several countries including India, South Africa, Singapore and the UK. For some time, he was also vice-president, commercial at Bharat Shell, a company in which Shell has 51 per cent shareholding.

He joined DNA in October, 2006 as chief executive officer and stepped down from the role in November, 2012.