Ali Zaidi appointed as deputy business head, Zee Studio and Zee Cafe

Previously, Zaidi was cinema cluster head, ad sales, ZEEL.

There has been a significant management change at the office of Zee Entertainment's English Cluster - Ali Zaidi has been appointed as deputy business head of Zee Studio and Zee Cafe. Previously, he was cinema cluster head, ad sales, ZEEL.

Zaidi will take around three months to transit between the two roles within the Network. He will report to Anurag Bedi, senior vice president and business head, niche channels, Zee, who is also executive vice president and business head of Zee Music Company.

Meanwhile... more changes

Sharlton Menezes, marketing head of English GEC Zee Cafe, has been given additional responsibilities. He will now head content for Zee Cafe as well as for English movie channel Zee Studio. He will continue to be the marketing head of both channels. His designation will be head, content and marketing, Zee Cafe and Zee Studio. His mandate includes content strategy, acquisitions and marketing.

Menezes replaces Sonal Khanduja, former content head of Zee Cafe and Zee Studio. Khanduja has joined Times Television Network (TTN) as vice president, programming, English Entertainment cluster. At TNN, she fills a position left vacant by Mansi Shrivastav, who quit in September this year. Shrivastav is on a sabbatical and will announce her next move sometime early next year.

At TTN, Khanduja will report to Vivek Srivastava, recently appointed English cluster head of the network. She will lead the content team of Movies Now (English movie channel) and Romedy Now (English entertainment channel).

With over a decade of experience in the broadcast domain, Khanduja's skills lie in programming strategy, content research, acquisition and production. She holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Mass Communication from Sophia College, Mumbai and a Bachelor's Degree (BA) in Economics and Political Science from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Prior to Zee, Khanduja was with Channel .

Menezes has been in the industry for almost a decade. He joined BNP Paribas as a cash management trainee in 2005. His introduction to the broadcast industry took place in 2008, when he joined Zee Entertainment Enterprises as senior manager, marketing, Zee Cafe, Zee Studio and Zing. In April 2014, he got promoted to the position of associate vice president and head, marketing (English Entertainment and Zing).

For the record, ZEEL made its foray into the music label space in April with Zee Music Company. The plan is to acquire the music rights of more than 20 major motion pictures in the financial year 2014-15.

The firm recently acquired the music rights of Akshay Kumar-starrer 'Holiday'. Recently, the company partnered with Fox Star Studios and got the music rights of five of its Hindi film releases, including names like 'Humshakals' (starring Saif Ali Khan, Riteish Deshmukh and Ram Kapoor), 'Bang Bang' (starring Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif) and the yet-to-be-released 'Bombay Velvet' (starring Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma; slated for a 2015 release).

ZEEL is one of India's leading television, media and entertainment companies. It is among the largest producers and aggregators of Hindi programming in the world, with a library that houses over 1.2 lakh hours of television content. With rights to more than 3,500 movie titles from various studios, ZEEL houses one of the largest Hindi film libraries too.

Through its strong presence worldwide, ZEEL entertains over 700 million viewers across 169 countries including the USA, Canada, Europe, Africa, West Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.