Disney Star India on Wednesday announced the appointment of Ajit Varghese as Head of Network Advertising Sales.
In this role, he will be responsible for overall advertising revenues of Disney Star’s television and digital businesses, and for driving growth through transformative sales and channel strategies, creating alliances, and business development.
Varghese joins Disney Star from ShareChat and Moj where he was the Chief Commercial Officer, responsible for driving monetisation, leading marketing efforts and content partnerships.
Prior to this, he was the Global President of Wavemaker, a WPP group media agency, overseeing business operations and driving growth across 50+ markets, based out of London.
Before that, Varghese did a three-year stint with Maxus (WPP) as its CEO for Asia Pacific, based in Singapore. Other organisations he worked with include Madison World, Kantar IMRB, and Initiative Universal Media.
Praise from President & Country Manager
Disney Star India said that Varghese will report to K Madhavan, President & Country Manager, and will also develop the long-term vision and define the strategic direction of the sales organisation.
“Ajit is a highly respected and well-regarded professional within the advertising and marketing fraternity. I am confident that under his leadership, we will be able to unlock significant value and create more opportunities to further grow our market leadership,” said Madhavan in a statement.
He added, “Over the course of his more than 27-year career in the advertising and marketing industry, Ajit has established himself as a highly accomplished leader as CEO of regional and global agencies. In his previous roles, he has driven growth and revenue on the publisher side, fronted large-scale business transformations for clients, and built diverse businesses around media, creative, digital, data, content, sports, and performance.”
Varghese said, “The advertising market in India has already crossed ₹1-lakh crore and is expected to be among the fastest growing in the world this year. This, combined with Disney Star’s status as the country’s leading media & entertainment company, allows for tremendous opportunities by which we can create ground-breaking solutions to drive growth for our clients. I keenly look forward to being a part of a great company, best-in-class content, and a superb team.”