Jasubhai Digital Media’s Ramakrishnan joins Reed Infomedia India

Jasubhai Digital Media’s Suresh Ramakrishnan has put in his papers after nine years. He has joined Reed Infomedia India as executive vice-president and country head. At Jasubhai Digital Media, Ramakrishnan was the vice-president of type i, the content services division which dealt with aspects such as e-learning and training over the Web.

For the record, Reed Infomedia India is the result of a 51:49 joint venture between Reed Business International and Infomedia India Ltd in December 2005.

Confirming his move to agencyfaqs!, Ramakrishnan says, “Joining as the country head of a company which is in its start-up stage has a different thrill to it. It will be exciting to put a team in place and steer the company from its very beginning.”

Prakash Iyer, MD, Infomedia India Ltd and a director on the board of the new company, says, “Ramakrishnan is a high-calibre manager with an outstanding track record in publishing. His experience with start-ups, his familiarity with Internet products and his team-building skills make him suited to building the Reed-Infomedia business in India.”

At Reed Infomedia India, Ramakrishnan’s mandate will be to launch Reed Business International’s B2B magazines in phases in India. The content will pertain to the Indian market. He will start off by launching ‘JCK’, the US-based trade magazine on jewellery, in the first week of October 2006, to coincide with the JCK trade show to be held in New Delhi. ‘JCK’ will target all those in the jewellery business chain, including diamond merchants and retailers.

Following ‘JCK’ will be five more titles from the Reed Business International stable, all of which will be launched within four-six months of each other. One of these is ‘Variety’, a film trade publication targeted at the film fraternity, including multiplex owners, distributors and exhibitors. ‘Flight International’ is another B2B magazine, this one on the aviation industry.

‘Logistics Management’ deals with issues in the logistics sector and will target production heads of companies, purchase managers, logistics managers and line managers. Next in line is ‘Control Engineering’, a magazine on manufacturing automation and high-end machines. Lastly, the company aims to launch ‘ICIS’, a publication on the chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries.

All these magazines will have controlled circulation (subscription driven). They will not be available on the news stands, except for ‘Variety’, which company officials feel the general public may be interested in because it deals with issues regarding the film industry.

A print run of 20,000-40,000 copies is being planned initially for each magazine. Apart from launching these magazines in India, Ramakrishnan will also be responsible for the other arenas in which the company competes – Websites, trade seminars and conferences.

Ramakrishnan, an alumnus of IIT, Kharagpur, and IIM, Ahmedabad, started his career with Rallis India (a Tata Group company) as product manager for pesticides and fertilisers. He went on to join Jasubhai Digital Media, where he launched magazines in the IT space, namely, ‘Computer Reseller News’ and ‘Network Computing’. He later moved on to the content services space as head of marketing, type i. He eventually became the division head and was designated vice-president.

He will now report to the board of Reed Infomedia India, which comprises Prakash Iyer and Jairam Shashidhar, in addition to Jason Cassidy and James Cassella (both from Reed Business International).

© 2006 agencyfaqs!