Arvind Mahendru quits India TV Interactive; joins ESPN STAR Sports

Arvind Mahendru, the erstwhile senior vice-president, new media, at India TV Interactive has recently joined ESPN STAR Sports as director of digital media.

Based in Delhi, Mahendru will report to James Miner, the senior vice-president of digital media for ESPN STAR Sports (ESS), who is based in Singapore. Additionally, Mahendru will also report to Sanjay Kailash, executive vice-president, ESPN STAR Sports, India.

On his appointment, Mahendru says, "ESS is the pioneer in the sporting arena. In terms of global sporting content across genres, it is not there on any other sports channel. My role is to look at innovative ways, where we could leverage 3G and 2.5G on the mobile space to deliver quality content to our audience."

He adds that in the industry, digital contributes only about 2 per cent of total media spends. Therefore, his other responsibility would be to leverage the flagship property of the company, its website--ESPNSTAR.com. "We will use our website to increase flow of information to our users, increase our user database to increase ad sales revenue," Mahendru says.

Mahendru has been associated with STAR since 1995. He says, "It is a brand that I know well and a brand that I would like to be associated with. Second, sports, as a genre, is something everyone aspires to be associated with".

Mahendru, who has about 18 years of experience, started his career with GlaxoSmithKline as management trainee in 1993. This was followed by a three-year stint at STAR TV India as manager operations. He spent another three years at Turner International, as director - subscriptions and operations. Mahendru also worked at Trinity Platco, Times Internet Limited, Bharti Airtel and even had a brief stint as a managing partner at Group M.

Finally, he moved to India TV Interactive in 2008, when Rajat Sharma's India TV forayed into various new media platforms and value-added services.