Re-structuring at Star India; five business units created

Uday Shankar, Sanjay Gupta, Kevin Vaz, K Madhavan, Amit Chopra, Nitin Kukreja, Ajit Mohan, and Vijay Singh have been elevated.

Star India recently announced a series of leadership changes as part of an organisational shift in strategic business units.

Uday Shankar will be chairman and chief executive officer. Sanjay Gupta, the current chief operating officer, has been elevated to managing director, Star India, and K Madhavan will be managing director, South. Both Gupta and Madhavan will continue to report to Shankar. These changes position the organisation to meet its future growth ambitions on the back of a decade of rapid growth.

"Star India consistently sets the standard for innovation and growth in one of the world's most exciting markets," says James Murdoch, chief executive officer, 21st Century Fox, in a press release. "Shankar, Gupta, Madhavan, and the entire Star India team have built a world-class business that has grown at double the industry rate. We are proud of its success and look forward to the next chapter of growth under Shankar's transformational leadership."

Star has established empowered business units, each with its own chief executive officer who will report to Gupta -- Amit Chopra, chief executive officer of Entertainment, which spans drama and movie channels across national and regional channels in Hindi, English, Bengali, and Marathi, Nitin Kukreja, chief executive officer of Sports, which includes a leading portfolio of channels under the Star Sports banner, Ajit Mohan, chief executive officer of Digital, which oversees Hotstar, Star's revolutionary digital platform which recently surpassed 50 million downloads, and Vijay Singh, chief executive officer of Fox Star Studios, which produces and distributes Bollywood and regional films.

Kevin Vaz has been appointed as chief executive officer, South, and will report to Madhavan. The South business unit incorporates all of Star's business interests in the Southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana.

In another first, a pan-India content studio will be set up to drive cutting edge innovation in programming under Gaurav Banerjee who will report to Gupta.

The corporate centre will continue, largely unchanged.

"I congratulate Gupta, Madhavan, and the chief executive officers on their elevation. This is a world class team that has powered Star to reach the No.1 position in the media and entertainment industry in India. The entire team and I are even more dedicated to the cause of using Star's reach in India to inspire the imaginations of a billion Indians. To do this, we need to continuously innovate and disrupt. We have set ourselves a bold growth agenda and these changes will deepen the leadership bench, unlock entrepreneurial energy, and position Star better to deliver on its ambitions," says Shankar in a press release.