STAR Sports finds marketing head in Visa's Shubhranshu Singh

This is the first time the channel has appointed a marketing head. The move comes in the wake of a highly visible revamp of its entire sports network.

STAR Sports has appointed Shubhranshu Singh, erstwhile marketing director, India and South Asia, Visa, as head of marketing. The move is significant on two fronts: Singh is the first marketing head at the sports network of STAR India. Also, the appointment will mark his foray into the media industry.

Sources close to the development inform that his designation will be senior vice-president and marketing head, STAR Sports.

Currently, the sports network is headed by Nitin Kukreja, head, STAR Sports. Rajeev Beotra was appointed as head of sales, STAR Sports Network, earlier this month; he will commence his duties in January, 2014.

Of late, STAR India has been noticeably aggressive as far as pushing its sports portfolio is concerned. It has beefed up the content and business fronts, after News Corp, its owning company, acquired Disney's stake in ESPN-STAR.

The sports-caster has already committed close to Rs 20,000 crore for its content.

After its revamp in November 2013, the company removed the name 'ESPN' from the channels' identity and reinforced 'STAR' by naming the channels STAR Sports 1, 2, 3, 4, HD1 and HD2, and StarSports.com.

Singh holds an MBA degree in international business from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. He has more than 14 years of experience as a marketing professional. A lot of his time was spent at Hindustan Unilever across two stints. He started his career in 1999 with HUL as area sales manager, managing sales and distribution for the soaps and detergents portfolio in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Chandigarh.

He moved on to join Seranova Inc as business development manager in 2001, followed by a short eight-month stint at HCL Perot system. He joined Syntel Inc in 2003 as director, business development. Singh returned 'home' to HUL in 2004 as customer marketing manager, skin care, thereby providing a continuous and seamless marketing and sales collaboration.

He held different positions in the company including that of marketing manager, deodorants and male grooming; marketing manager, Lakme; and marketing manager, household care till March 2010, when he left the organisation.

He then joined Diageo as national head, customer marketing in 2010. At Diageo (which owns brands like Smirnoff, Bailey's, Johnnie Walker, Captain Morgan and Guinness, among others), Singh built the customer marketing function from scratch and led a large team that delivered performance across the board in shopper activations, experiential marketing, point-of-sale transformation, gifting, category development promotions and capability building initiatives.

In 2011, he joined Visa, the financial services brand, as marketing director, India and South Asia.