Bharat Kapadia gets a leg up at Bhaskar Group, now ED

Bharat Kapadia, who joined the Bhaskar Group two years ago as ED in charge of `Divya Bhaskar’, has been promoted to executive director of the entire group.

Confirming the development to agencyfaqs!, Kapadia said his new role would make him responsible, not just for ‘Divya Bhaskar’, the Gujarati newspaper, but also for ‘Dainik Bhaskar’, the flagship brand of the group, and magazines ‘Aha! Zindagi’ and ‘Saurashtra Samachar’.

Kapadia will also be responsible for the group’s digital and wireless arm, IMCL (Taj project). He describes his new assignment as a “challenge” that will give him a chance to “explore his abilities in other areas”, including radio, Internet and a key Hindi publication.

Under his leadership, Kapadia said the group would continue to be aggressive, not just in print. “In the short-term, we will come up with a Kutch edition of ‘Divya Bhaskar’," he says. Currently, ‘Divya Bhaskar’ has eight full-fledged editions.

Kapadia is the son-in-law of the founder of ‘Chitralekha’, the late Vaju Kotak, and played a strategic role in turning ‘Chitralekha’ into a strong regional brand before moving to Bhaskar Group two years ago. He is a prominent personality in the Indian print media space and has been featured twice by ‘Mid Day’, the afternoon tabloid, as one of the ‘Top 50 Power Points in Media’. He has won the coveted Ad Club Media Innovation Award twice and the Emvies Media Marketer of the Year Award in 2001.

Kapadia has held important posts in various industrial bodies: chairman, project press committee of the Indian Newspaper Society; board member and ex-chairman, Advertising Standards Council of India; and ex-chairman Media Research User’s Council.

© 2007 agencyfaqs!