9X Media restructures its sales team

9X Media Network has announced major changes in its sales team. It has appointed Samir Kadam as the national sales head for 9X Jalwa and 9X Jhakaas. The media group has also promoted Anupama Gulati in the role of national sales head for 9XO, the international music channel from the bouquet of 9X Media Group. Both Kadam and Gulati will report to Pawan Jailkhani, chief revenue officer, 9X Media Group.

Speaking about his appointment, Kadam says, "Moving from STAR Jalsha Movies to 9X Media Group was a big call. I was looking out for new challenges and found 9X Media as an appropriate place considering the media group has grown well since its inception. Both 9X Jhakaas and 9X Jalwa cater to different genres. While 9X Jhakaas targets Marathi speaking markets which has a huge spill over from Bollywood, Jalwa on the other hand gives an emotional connect to the viewers as the channel airs all-time Bollywood hits. There will be many interesting developments on the channels in the near future."

Kadam has more than 13 years of experience and began his career at a newspaper. He has worked with ETC Music, Southern Spice, Zee and his last stint was at STAR Jalsha Movies, where he handled the channel's national sales portfolio.

Gulati was earlier serving as vice-president, 9XM. Her new mandate is to take care of the sales of the channel, along with providing brand solutions for 9XO.

Gulati says, "Brand solutions is beyond the usual free commercial time that we offer on our channels. Here we get the brief from a particular brand and we associate our proposition with the brief and come up with an innovation. Some of the brands that we have associated in the past are Idea and Kwality Walls. It is a fun way of getting a connect with the brands."

Gulati has been associated with the 9X Media group since 2007 and has been involved in the launches of all the channels. She has more than 10 years of experience and has worked at Times of India, STAR and Sony in different capacities.

Commenting on the restructuring, Jailkhani says, "We have grown manifold times both in terms of ad revenues and our music channel offerings. Keeping in mind the current and future needs of our network, we have strengthened our sales team with internal and external appointments. This will enable more focused sales considering our diverse portfolio."

The media group has also promoted Sachin Malhotra as head, pan India sales for 9X Tashan. From now on, Rajiv Sharma and Johnson Jain will share the sales responsibilities for the group's flagship channel, 9XM, in North and West, respectively.

All three will also report to Jailkhani.

9XM is the music channel offering of 9X Media, which also offers 9X Jalwa, 9X Jhakaas, 9XM (UK), 9XO and 9X Tashan.