K Madhavan Becomes India Manager at Disney

By Patrick Frater

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – K Madhavan has been promoted to country manager of all of Disney’s conventional TV businesses in the key Indian market. Madhavan was previously head of ’s regional language TV businesses in South since 2016.

Madhavan’s promotion was announced internally within Disney in India on Friday. He takes over from Sanjay Gupta, who has resigned as head of Star and will leave the company by Dec. 27. Gupta was also head of Disney’s studio business, essentially distribution of Disney’s studio titles, in India.

Uday Shankar, the former Star head who earlier this year became head of the merged Disney and Fox businesses across all of the Asia-Pacific region, will become acting head of Hotstar, Disney’s booming streaming business in India.

Nitin Bawankule who had recently taken charge of ad-sales for HSM, sports and Hotstar will report to Madhavan for the TV business, and will work directly with Shankar for Hotstar ad sales.

Shankar’s appointment was announced several months prior to completion of the Disney-Fox merger. He then announced his Fox-heavy leadership team in April. Madhavan and Gupta were announced as keeping their jobs in the new structure, while Fox distribution chief Kurt Rieder became head of the studio business everywhere in Asia, except India.

Other Fox executives staying or in the enlarged structure included: Sanjay Jain, former CFO at Fox’s Star, as head of finance; Amita Maheshwari, former head of HR at Star, leading human resources; Deepak Jacob, from Star’s legal department, is chief regional counsel for India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East; Prateek Garg, previously head of business development and acquisitions at Star, became head of corporate development; and Jannie Poon, became head of corporate communications.