Sanjay Gupta to be STAR India’s new COO; Jagdish Kumar moves down south to head regional business

Gupta will join the company in three weeks

STAR India will have a new chief operating officer in Sanjay Gupta who was the chief marketing officer of Bharti Airtel. He is expected to join the company in two to three weeks time.

Jagdish Kumar, who is currently serving as COO, will be entrusted to look after the South regional channels business, once Gupta takes over as COO. Late last year, STAR India, and Jupiter Entertainment Ventures (Jupiter Entertainment), Rajeev Chandrasekhar's media and entertainment development company, announced the formation of STAR Jupiter Entertainment Television Limited (STAR Jupiter), a joint venture aimed at enhancing the television viewing experience of South Indian audiences.

All the business heads of STAR Group’s channels in India will report to Gupta, said a source close to the development.

In March this year, Bharti Airtel restructured its top management under which Raghunath Mandava, who was CEO for the Rajasthan circle, was, reportedly, to be elevated as chief marketing officer, in place of Gupta.

Gupta joined Airtel around two years ago. Prior to that, he had worked with FMCG major Hindustan Unilever, where he spent 16 years.

On the other hand, Kumar has been with STAR for more than thirteen years in various capacities and functions such as finance, platforms and corporate affairs. He joined STAR India in 1995 as its chief financial officer and has held a number of titles, including that of senior vice-president for finance at the company’s headquarters in Hong Kong since 2004.

He has served as vice-president of the digital platform group in Mumbai from 2001 to 2004. Prior to joining STAR, Kumar spent eight years with ITC as financial controller (international business, Aqua Group) in Chennai.