Dhawal Katkar promoted as senior director & network head for Turner International English

Katkar will handle the mandate for HBO and WB Movies in India and Pakistan.

Turner International India has promoted Dhawal Katkar as senior director and network head for its English vertical. Earlier, he was director, marketing and PR, South Asia, Turner International.

Katkar's new mandate will include managing integrated communication and content portfolio of HBO and WB Movies (Warner Brothers). Based in Mumbai, he will report to Siddharth Jain, managing director, South Asia, Turner International India.

Speaking on his appointment, Katkar says, "My new mandate will include managing performance of two leading English movie channels - HBO and WB Movies. We aim to reach out to a wider audience with engaging content."

Katkar will handle the India and Pakistan region; however, his mandate will not include the two new premium HBO channels, HBO Defined and Hits.

Commenting on the development, Jain says, "He brings attributes including a sharp marketing brain, a sound understanding of our brands and past experience of FMCG and consumer products and has the credentials to take this key vertical to the next level of success."

Katkar joined Turner International India in 2011 and has led several on-air and on-ground communications programmes for kids such as School Contact Programmes, and also led Cartoon Network's promotion strategy that fetched Turner the Superbrand tag in 2012. He has also worked on various digital campaigns for WB Movies that has help build reach by driving online traffic to the channel via real time innovative contests.

He has more than 14 years of experience in the FMCG industry with various consumer brands such as L'Oreal, Godrej and Heinz India. He was also the associate marketing director at The Walt Disney Company India.

Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific offers news, kids' and entertainment networks through its 24 channels in nine languages for viewers across 23 countries. Some of its entertainment and news brands include CNN International, CNNj (Japan), HLN, CNN US, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Pogo, TCM, MondoTV, Tabi Channel, WB, truTV and QTV. The organisation employs 900 people in 11 countries, namely Australia, China, Hong Kong, India Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.