According to two persons acquainted with the situation, Walt Disney India has promoted Kevin Vaz, the head of infotainment, kids, and regional entertainment channels Star and Disney India, to head of entertainment. In an internal email, K. Madhavan, country manager and president of the Walt Disney Company India and Star India, said, “We have bold goals to accelerate both Disney+ Hotstar and our television network to announce a re-alignment of the existing structure of our businesses that would speed up our growth programme, allowing us to accomplish those objectives”.
Vaz, who previously worked for the company’s regional entertainment network, will now be in charge of the whole entertainment channel business, including regional channels, kids, and infotainment, in his enlarged job as head of entertainment. In addition to his existing reporting to Nitin Bawankule, head, ad sales at Disney Star TV network, Arghya Chakravarty, executive vice-president of the ad sales entertainment business, will be dotted reporting to Vaz for Hindi-speaking markets ad sales.
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Gaurav Banerjee, formerly in charge of content for TV and the company’s video streaming service Hotstar, will now be in the order of programming for the HSM entertainment network, Disney+ Hotstar, and regional content OTT, as well as owning the audience duty.
For HSM content creation and online originals, Banerjee will continue to report to the content leaders for all Hindi channels and Nikhil Madhok, executive vice-president, Hotstar. Jhaveri and Dhawal Gusain, operations, insights, and new initiatives, Hotstar, and regional channel general managers for Disney+ Hotstar content will report to Banerjee for digital movie rights.
Read also; Coming soon, Disney Plus to launch in India
