Shringar's Rajnetram to join Lodestar

After putting in six months at Shringar Cinemas, Deepak Rajnetram, head of sales and marketing, has called it a day. Rajnetram is currently on leave and is slated to join Lodestar as media controller on January 6.

At Lodestar, Rajnetram will be in charge of Tata Motors, TCS and Tata Mutual Funds. He will report in to Arpita Menon, general manager, Lodestar, who is the overall head of the Tata business.

For Rajnetram, the Lodestar assignment will mark his entry back into the media industry, which he quit six months back, when he took up the marketing offer at Fame. Rajnetram has eight years of media experience; his last assignment being as media director of MPG before moving to Shringar Cinemas.

He declines to indicate the specific reasons for his sudden exit from Shringar, which operates the Fame brand name of multiplexes in western India. At the moment, Shringar has four properties – at Andheri, Malad and Khandivali in Mumbai and one at Nasik. A fifth multiplex at Surat is slated to be launched in the coming year, and the company is scouting for business opportunities down South as well.

Interestingly, even as Shringar explores new territories elsewhere, competition has been hotting up in Mumbai with the entry of INOX Leisure in November this year. Arch rival PVR Cinemas is also looking to set up shop in Mumbai with a property near Chandan Cinema in the suburb of Juhu.

As the space gets hotter in the city, and indeed across urban and semi-urban areas in the country, the challenge faced by most multiplex operators is the retention of people. Labour turnover is intense, especially at the lower levels, and retaining them is a problem.

Coming back to Shringar, it is not clear who is set to replace Rajnetram as head of sales and marketing. Prior to him, Srikant Hazare and Ramesh Thondapi occupied the position.

The interesting bit is that Rajretnam's exit as marketing head will be the third at Shringar in a span of two years.

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