The 27th Annual Conference
Ponentes | WAN-IFRA India 2019
WAN-IFRA India 2019
COO - Newspaper Group, TechNova, India.
Amit Khurana heads newspaper sales for TechNova Imaging System Pvt. Ltd. He has been associated with TechNova for 11 years. Khurana is a Printing Technologist who holds an MBA and boasts of rich experience and a deep understanding of the newspaper industry. Khurana started his career on the shop floor handling press operations and worked in the Printing Ink Industry before joining the TechNova family.
Anup Pal, AGM-Quality Assurance, BCCL
Anup Pal has over 26 years of experience in paints, inks, paper, packaging and printing. He has worked on
- Lighter GSM newsprint development
- High-strength high-solid ink development
- Specialty ink development including UV ink, metallic ink, fluorescent ink, pearlescent ink and encapsulated fragrance ink.
- Development of various fount solutions - mild acidic, neutral pH.
Pal is keen on working on eco-friendly VOC free inks, herbal fount solutions and eco-friendly washes.
Chief Manager - Electrical, BCCL
Amit Gupta has over 20 years of experience in various kind of printing machinery i.e. screen printing, rotogravure printing and offset printing machines. He has worked on UV lacquer-based screen-printing machine for optical media and has developed soft-logic to control solid state UV ballast. He has also developed a High Voltage Corona Treater for Poly-Treatment process for rotogravure and poly-extrusion machines.
Gupta has hands-on experience on SMD and THT based industrial repair and service of different kinds of industrial equipments i.e. Servo Drives, PLC, VFD etc. He has worked on the complete retrofit of Logic and motion control for manroland offset printing machine. Gupta also tried his hands on 2 X 2500KVA Static UPS installation with 2V–VRLA Type 3000 No. of batteries installation.
Managing Editor, Integration, Hindustan Times, India
Anup has transited through initial hot metal type foundry days to the photo typeset years in the late eighties to the present digital world. He has worked with titles / companies including India Today, The Economic Times, Business Today, Business Standard, Business World, Times of India and Quark. Since 2006 he has been working with HT Media Limited first to launch Mint, then with Dr Garcia design Hindustan Times and Hindustan and lead the journey of transforming the HT Newsroom into an integrated one as the project director.
Director-Supply Chain, HT Media, India
Engineering & Newsprint Consultant, India
Emmy Silva holds a graduation degree in Electrical Engineering from the College of Engineering in Trivandrum. He boasts of over 40 years of experience in varied engineering, sales and purchase with multinationals and Indian companies.
Silva has worked with the US multinational EVEREADY as part of the sales and purchase team of the Managerial cadre. He also has 15 years of experience working with India's leading language publication Malayala Manorama to his name, where he specialized in setting up systems and ERP implementation.
He was responsible for major cost-cutting measures at Hyderabad’s Administrative Staff College. Silva negotiated with international suppliers of newsprint through consortium, ensuring competitive pricing and reliability, and maintained quality and consistency of supply in times of shortage.
Chief Technology Officer, Distribution Innovation, Norway
Frode Finnes Larsen is the CTO at Distribution Innovation AS, a Schibsted Media Group and Amedia company. He started his career as a rocket scientist at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.
Larsen is an experienced speaker and has 20 years of experience in technology management, innovation and transformation. He advises startups and is currently advising a global drone/UAV company. Since its inception in 2001, Distribution Innovation has digitized the distribution value chain of media companies. The brand occupies over 90% of the market in Norway and Sweden, almost half the market in Finland, and is expanding to Europe.
Distribution Innovation is undertaking business development in relationship with customers, enabling their business with new technologies such as machine learning, IoT/smart mailboxes and blockchain. At Distribution Innovation, Larsen and his colleagues have launched Europe's first voice service with payment, built the first blockchain-based logistics platform in the Nordics, started with digital locks, deployed secure delivery boxes and moved into the cloud.
Larsen has studied electrical engineering and holds a Master’s degree in management.
Managing Director, Market Development, SPH Magazines
As the Managing Director, Geoff Tan oversees an extensive portfolio that includes partnerships and strategy, insights and intelligence, activations and sponsorships. His team is responsible for a host of deliverables such as engaging specific consumer segments via targeted database strategies, curated content syndication, channel partnerships, bespoke event activations, international licensing amongst other things.
Prior to joining SPH Magazines, Tan was heading the strategic marketing portfolio in SPH’s marketing division. He was also a mentor to start-ups housed within the SPH Plug and Play media accelerator initiative.
Tan was conferred the PANPA 2011 Marketer of the Year accolade by the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association for outstanding performance in marketing for a publishing company.
Chief Revenue & Innovation Officer, Diari ARA, Spain
Manager - IT-Prepress, THG
Krishna Karthik started his career in 1995 as a system hardware engineer in PSG College of Technology, in Tamil Nadu where he was responsible for troubleshooting PC, PC-XT.
In 1997, he shifted to Init Systems in Tamil Nadu, as a system hardware and network engineer, troubleshooting servers, systems and printers.
The following year, he joined The Hindu Group working across the Hyderabad and Kochi branches in the electronic department. He is currently in Coimbatore in the IT pre-press.
Chief Product Officer, Xperian
65000+ hours of experience design, 150+ products and 400 master classes. Karthi is a Chief Product Officer in Xperian, an ecosystem for creative problem solvers. A technologist turned into a multidisciplinary product designer and design educator focused on human cognition and behaviors. Her work focuses on designing meaningful systems with an emphasis on experience design. Before starting out into products world, Karthi designed printers for Hewlett Packard, Payment systems for State farm Insurance, Dashboards for World Bank, Pocket PC applications for Microsoft and many more. Karthi had a 7-year stint of entrepreneurship by running a premium design consulting agency called Oghma. Karthi earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and a Masters in Human-Computer Interaction from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and also an Executive MBA from Product Leadership.
Head of Digital, The Tiso Blackstar Group (former: Times Media Group), South Africa & Vice-President, WAN-IFRA
Lisa MacLeod is the digital head at Tiso Blackstar Group, South Africa’s largest English-language publisher and owner of eight newspapers, 15 websites, music, film and radio businesses across the continent.
MacLeod leads digital strategy and innovation, manages Tiso Blackstar’s online properties with 6-million unique browsers monthly on titles such as TimesLIVE, SowetanLIVE and BusinessLIVE, along with implementing sustainable digital monetisation streams.
MacLeod’s previous stints include 12 years at the Financial Times in London, where she helped drive the print to digital integration. She served as Head of Operations for FT.com, widely thought to be the most successful paid website in the media industry, and FT Managing Editor, overseeing staffing, strategic planning and budgets for the FT globally.
She has been on the board of the World Editors Forum for years and has taught and spoken at numerous international conferences and training events for WAN-IFRA and the WEF.
Director of International Sales, QIPC
Mathijs Baron is the Director of International Sales for Africa and the Asia Pacific region. He is responsible for supporting customers in South America, Africa and Asia.
After graduating from the Marnix University in the Netherlands, he kickstarted his career in Beijing where he lived for over five years. During his time there, he launched several companies that helped him pave his way to an international career.
With over nine years of experience in the Asian market, at QIPC, Baron leads a team of engineers and locally based agents that collaborate with clients in the region.
Head-Services & Replacement Business, Shanthi Gears, India
Completed D.M.E(SWC) during 1987 at Coimbatore Institute of Technology. Working at Shanthi Gears Limited from 1988. Having 31-year experience at Shanthi Gears Limited and Worked in various functions like maintenance, process planning, production planning, manufacturing, marketing & service. Presently heading service & replacement business were generating high revenue for the company. Executed various critical projects with lightning speed to put back the production at various industries. Concentrating to educate the customers about the maintenance of gearboxes at various plants like steel, cement, power, paper, sugar, etc. Conducted more than 100 seminars at various customer place in India and Globally. By using his rich expertise is in a position to provide a solution for power transmissions.
Head - Customer Strategy, Future Group, India
Madan Mohan Mohapatra, Head-Customer Strategy and CEO Future Media, brings with him a cumulative experience of over two decades. The period has seen him working across sectors as diverse as consumer research, television production, media planning and buying, marketing with retail at the core, activation, loyalty & analytics and business revival at market/store level. During these two decades of work, he has been not only responsible for setting up new businesses but also revising business across multiple verticals. His current role is two-fold – drawing up the customer strategy for Future Group in India and also building an asset monetization model (P&L responsibility) for the group.
He has been fortunate to have worked in India during a critical phase when the new economy was just taking its baby steps. Sectors such as television, media and retail had transformed to align with a new, emerging consumer class and eventually to make way for a global Indian consumer. That gave Madan a first hand exposure to often working in large organizations, where the environment was no different from a start-up – enthusiastic, having a clear cost focus and very profit-driven. Cases in point would include stints in media agencies when television was a fledgling medium, witnessing the beginning of the cricket economy in India and later globally and perhaps most importantly, being a part of the retail story in India, where not just the ability but willingness to spend being the big story. At each stage, the evolution of the Indian consumer or shopper was at the core of it and the job on hand was to get key insights and building strategy to help in business by getting the customers inside the stores. This was greatly supplemented by travel across India during a critical phase when Future Group was expanding its retail presence. The experience of being on the shop floor has been one of the most insightful experiences. Of course, in a market as heterogeneous as India with varying consumer tastes coupled with an intensely complex media structure, he has managed to bring in consumers across store formats feeding into the large growth strategy of the group.
For most Indians, the move to working for large multinational networks comes after the mandatory stint with the traditional Indian entrepreneur. In Madan’s case, it has been the other way but with a difference. The entrepreneur here is Mr. Kishore Biyani, a name synonymous with modern Indian retail, whose 2000+ stores on any given month sells products to over 40 million Indian consuming class. Be it fashion, food or home category, Madan’s experience of working closely with the man, who founded the Future Group and laid the foundation for Indian modern retail, has been rich to say the least. A recent move, which in many ways will mark his return to P&L responsibility with media at its core, calls for working with the largest Indian/MNC brands and develop more innovative ways at the last mile to build positive disposition in the fragmented media market with lesser consumer attention span. This is a business about which not very much is known to the world at large. It gives him the chance to draw out a consumer strategy for modern retail and ensure it makes business sense for the brands using the captive audience in the retail environment.
A firm believer that India is all where the most exciting things are taking place, Madan represents a generation that had a little baggage from a closed economy and used that smartly to get the best out of a new age economy. Luckily, that period of transformation is still underway
Independent journalist, India
Neha Dixit is an independent journalist based out of New Delhi, India. She covers politics, gender and social justice in South Asia. Dixit has worked in multiple mediums including online, print and television.
Dixit’s reportage features in the likes of Al Jazeera, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Outlook, Caravan, Smithsonian, Tehelka, India Today, Foreign Policy, The Wire among others.
Oshin Anand, Data Scientist, Ninestars
Deputy MD & CEO, DB Corp, India.
Pawan Agarwal is the Deputy Managing Director of the Dainik Bhaskar Group.
The brand started its journey in 1958 with its flagship Hindi language Newspaper brand Dainik Bhaskar in Madhya Pradesh. Today, the company is present in 13 states with 65 editions. It boasts of FM Radio in 7 states with 30 stations and has a digital business comprising 13 portals to cater to the rapidly growing digital audiences.
Agarwal heads the production and information and technology department in addition to the the Radio and Digital Media Business. He has been awarded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his contribution to Indian Language Journalism.
An industrial engineering graduate from Purdue University, USA, Agarwal is credited with conceptualization and leading the acclaimed twin-contact-strategy, which was implemented for the launch of Divya Bhaskar.
Vice President - Ad Dailies -The Telegraph, ABP, India
Research Engineer, WAN-IFRA, South Asia.
Prabhu Natrajan is a Printing Technologist, with a graduate degree from Chennai’s Anna University. His area of expertise is Newspaper Production and holds 10 years’ technical experience with The Times of India.
Natrajan is currently working with WAN-IFRA where he is a project manager for the International Color Quality Competition. He is also responsible Research and Material Testing Center (RMTC) activities. RMTC, owned by WAN-IFRA, offers newsprint and news ink testing, print quality evaluation, press simulator training and ISO 12647-3 certification.
Country Head & Managing Director, Polaris India
CEO, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Limited
Raj Jain is the Chief Executive Officer at Bennett, Coleman & Co. Limited (The Times Group), the largest media company in India. He previously served as the President and CEO of Walmart India. Jain spearheaded Walmart’s entry into India and successfully established Wholesale Cash and Carry, retail businesses of Walmart in India within a JV with the Bharti Group.
Prior to Walmart, Jain was the Asia Pacific Region Head for the Marketing and Supply Chain at Whirlpool Corporation in Shanghai, China. During his 10 years at Whirlpool, he also served as the MD and CEO of Whirlpool India Ltd.
Jain started his career at Unilever. His successful and distinctive career spanning over 16 years in Unilever in India and UK included several key managerial positions in Sales, Marketing, and Supply Chain. He is the Ex-Chairperson of the Board of American Chamber of Commerce & Industry (AMCHAM), served on the advisory board of HOPE Foundation in India and has served on the Board of ASCI (The Advertising Standards Council of India).
Executive Director, HT Media Ltd, India
Chief Technology Officer, DB Corp Ltd, India
Professional with a career of 36 years experience in Print & Production and Information Technology of leading Corporates in India.
Worked as Tech Lead in Production with Times of India and Sunday Mail, he continues to innovate and introduce the latest technologies successfully in a traditionally run print-media to a cloud journey with a vision to make DB an IT Led organization which is also the largest read newspaper group of the country - Dainik Bhaskar.
Mr. Bhatnagar better known as Innovator & trendsetter in the Technology sector for Media and has many feathers in his cap, including setting up of more than 57 Print and Publishing Centres for the Media companies.
Introduced various innovative concepts like Fragrance, 3D Imaging & Super Panorama in Newspapers.
India voted Taj Mahal into seven wonders of the world using Dainik Bhaskar’s shortcode 54567 using the IT backend set up by him.
He also set up the First semi broadcast level TV Studio and the First FM Radio Station for DB Corp Ltd.
He was also awarded amongst “100 Most Innovative CIO of India” in 2016 by World CSR Day & World Sustainability Congress based on his:
- Strategic Perspective
- Track Record
- Innovations
- Best Use of Technology
- Ability for Sustainability
- Future Orientation
- Integrity and Ethics
- Thought Leadership
Editor, Investigations, Indian Express, India
Ritu Sarin, 59, is currently Executive Editor (News and Investigations) in The Indian Express and has a career in journalism of over 35 years. She has earlier worked in The Delhi Recorder magazine, The Sunday magazine and The Pioneer newspaper. In 1996, she joined The Indian Express as head of its Investigative Bureau. In the Indian Express, Sarin led a team of investigative reporters and individually, wrote some memorable stories.
This included The Tata Tapes (1997); the expose on breech of security in Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's office ( 2011); the illegal troop movement (2012); the inquiry report of the Army's Technical Support Division ( 2014); the Birla tax case (2015) and the Essar Leaks (2015). In 1999, Sarin was nominated to become a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and over the past few years, she has headed teams in The Indian Express which have probed bank accounts and off shore companies held by Indians in different tax havens. The first investigation was into Indians incorporating companies in the BVI (2013); the complete data on HSBC account holders (2015); the Panama Papers (2016) and the Paradise Papers (2017). In each case, the Government has set up tax probe teams and recovered sizeable amounts of undeclared tax. The Panama Papers internationally won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. The latest ICIJ project which she led for the newspaper was the 2018 investigation into faulty implants and medical devices titled 'The Implant Files.' Recently, Sarin was nominated to be a founder member of ICIJ's network committee, responsible for expanding the organisation's membership base and to laise with the top rung of the investigative journalism body.
Sarin herself has been recipient of the 2007 Ramnath Goenka Journalist of the Year award. In 2011, she received the Prem Bhatia award for best investigative journalist and in 2017 she along with members of The Indian Express team received the Ramnath Goenka award for investigative journalism for the Panama Papers. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigeous International Press Institute (IPI-India) award for excellenge in journalism to be followed in 2019 by the Red Ink award of the Mumbai Press Club for the Implant Files investigation. Recently, Sarin has been nominated to be a founder member of Watchdog Asia, a new group of investigative reporters from all over Asia.
She has attended investigative conferences and conducted workshops in several countries and was a plenary session speaker at the 2017 Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Johanesburg. She is the author of a book, an investigative account of the assasination of Indira Gandhi, published by Penguin in 1990.
Co-Founder & CEO, Quintillion Media, India
Ritu Kapur is the co-founder and CEO of The Quint and board member, World Editors Forum. She is also a Board Member at Oxford University’s prestigious Reuters Institute Of Journalism and the World Editor's Forum. She used to head Programming at History Channel, was Features Editor at CNN IBN, where she launched the popular CJ (Citizen Journalist) Show, among others. Kapur has been recognized by Outlook Business as "Woman of Worth 2017 - The Newsmaker".
Under her leadership, The Quint has grown by nearly 250% Year on Year in terms of both Unique Users and Pageviews, and seen a 100%+ growth in revenue, and pulled in some of the biggest clients in the industry. She has also driven the redesign of The Quint's website, founded the proprietary interactive microsite format "Quint Lab", and launched the health content platform "Quint Fit".
Along with being an accomplished leader, she has spearheaded many initiatives and campaigns tackling social issues. Some of her most successful campaigns are Register To Vote and Power Of 49, which championed a manifesto for women, who comprise 49 per cent of the population. Another significant initiative was The Quint's partnership with BBC, which led to the birth of #SwachhDigital India, a campaign against fake news.
Ritu Kapur has also strived to provide multiple platforms for free speech such as Talking Stalking, Bol and Citizen Q.
Corporate Manager - Production, ABP Pvt Ltd
Saptangshu Chaudhury’s holds a BE in Printing from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He has been associated with ABP Pvt Ltd’s print production for 18 years. During his tenure, he has gathered extensive experience with Goss Urbanite, Goss Universal, Hiline Cityline and Wifag printing machines and CtP and pre-press workflow.
Chaudhury is also involved in quality and process improvement across different print locations of ABP. He is an avid sports lover, foodie and a travel enthusiast.
Chief Revenue Officer, THG, India
CEO & Whole Time Director, Jagran Prakashan Ltd
Mr Sanjay Gupta is the Editor in Chief and CEO of Jagran Prakashan Ltd, one of India’s leading Media and Communications Group with leadership in Print, Digital, Radio, Out-of-Home (OOH) and Activation. With 10 print titles across 13 states in 5 different languages and a readership in excess of 90 mn, Jagran is the largest print media group in the country.
Under Sanjay’s leadership, the flagship brand Dainik Jagran, has been the largest read newspaper of India since 2003. Dainik Jagran stands for credibility, honesty and nation building. For 75 years, this iconic voice of freedom and free expression has been benchmarking standards of excellence that have inspired readers and industry alike.
Mr Sanjay Gupta is associated with several cultural, social and commercial organizations and a number of trade and industry bodies like Indian Newspaper Society, International News Media Association, World Editors Forum and the World President’s Organization. He was recently appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIM Amritsar.
For his exemplary contribution to the industry, Sanjay has been awarded at various platforms, the most notable of them being the Editor of The Year Award conferred on him by the Hon’ble Minister Shri Kiran Rijiju, and AIMA Managing India Award for Outstanding Contribution to Media
Managing Director, OD Alternatives, India
Director - Response, Times of India, India
AGM, BCCL
Industrial Exposure:
• 23 years of work experience with BCCL since 1997
• Worked in Pre-press section with Camera, Scanner, Image setter, CtP etc.
• Worked in Press Colourman, Cromoman
• Worked extensively with SAP, Data handling & visualization including Tableau & Power BI
Deputy Manager, Asahi Shimbun, Japan
Takashi Kanari is the Deputy Manager in the sales administration department of Asahi Shimbun, the headquarters of which are in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Sapporo in Japan.
Asahi Shimbun is celebrating its 140th anniversary this year. The brand currently publishes and distributes 5.5 million copies of papers daily. Kanari has been working for Asahi Shimbun for 26 years and his primary role is to support distributors with business operation and management.
Kanari hopes to acquire knowledge about the newspaper industry in India.
Chief Operating Officer, WAN-IFRA, Germany
Thomas Jacob was appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of WAN-IFRA in 2012. He is responsible for developing and implementing the organization’s strategy to be a platform for exchange of ideas, information and experiences among the global news publishing industry. Prior to this Jacob was the Deputy CEO, taking care of regional operations.
Prior to WAN-IFRA, Jacob worked for DMG Media, publisher of Daily Mail and Metro in the United Kingdom. As the International Development Director, he identified and evaluated digital media companies in Asia for potential acquisition. He also conceptualized and launched a compact midmarket newspaper, Mail Today, for the Indian market as a JV with the India Today Group.
Jacob is an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. As a summa cum laude, he is also a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, an honor society for management in the United States.
He is a trained engineer in electronics and telecommunications, having graduated with distinction from the National Institute of Technology, Suratkal, in India.
Managing Director, Print Power Europe, Brussels, Belgium
Ulbe Jelluma is a seasoned marketing and advertising professional. He is heading Print Power Europe, the pan-European, industry-wide initiative promoting print advertising.
Print Power Europe, the leading voice for print media campaigning, sponsored by the European paper industry, organises Round Tables with leading brands and agencies; providing facts, expert interviews and cases on its website printpower.eu and setting-up face-to-face meetings with agencies and brands discussing the role of print advertising in the media mix.
Ulbe worked for the international advertising agencies Ogilvy, Hakuhodo/TBWA and BBDO for international clients such as Canon Europe, Sappi Europe, Südzucker, Unilever, Philips and American Express.
He's committed to the effectiveness of advertising and was a member of the founding committee and winner of the award that recognise effective advertising campaigns: the Effie awards. He was also part of the team that relaunched the Euro-Effies. He is a past Board member of the Belgian Marketing Association. Ulbe is Dutch but has spent more years in Belgium than in his home country.
He’s a regular speaker at industry events, including WAN-IFRA Annual Conference, INMA Global News Conference, FIPP Global Annual event, Distripress Congress, and various Print Power member events,….
Sr.Vice President, Jagran Prakahsan Limited, India
- He currently holds Senior Vice President at Jagran Prakashan Ltd.
- He is with Jagran for more than a decade.
- A rich 25 years of experience in the marketing and advertising industry.
- He graduated from Delhi University
Vice President, Marketing, Ad Sales, Malayala Manorama, India
Varghese Chandy is the Vice President of Marketing, Ad sales, at Malayala Manorama. With over 2.4 million copies and more than 15 million readers, Malayala Manorama is the largest circulated regional language daily in India.
Chandy is credited with founding of Junction K, the integrated media solutions platform of the group. He has also served as chairperson for the coordination committee of the National Readership Survey.
He has won awards such as Media Marketer of the Year 2003 at ‘Emvies’, Mumbai Ad Club and Best Research Paper award at Worldwide Readership Research Symposium 2009 in Spain.
Editor-in-Chief, The Straits Times & SPH's English/Malay/Tamil Media Group, Singapore
Warren Fernandez joined the paper in 1990 as a political reporter and rose to become a News Editor. He went on to serve as Foreign Editor and Deputy Editor.
Fernandez then joined Royal Dutch Shell in 2008 as a Global Manager for its Future Energy Project, before returning to the paper in February 2012 as its Editor. He assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief of Singapore Press Holdings’ (SPH) English/Malay/Tamil Media group (EMTM) from July 2016.
Fernandez graduated with First Class Honours from Oxford University, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He also holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Former Director, Kasturi & Sons Ltd
Kasturi Balaji is the Former Director of Kasturi & Sons Ltd., the publishers of The Hindu. Mr. Balaji has more than 30 years of experience in technology, production and ink manufacturing.
Owner, Gerhard Raab International Consulting, Germany
Consulting for Media and other business, Business Development, Sales, Marketing, Project Management, Consulting in India and for Indian companies in Europe
General Manager - Circulation, The Printers Mysore Pvt Ltd., India
Oliver Lesly has joined The Printers (Mysore) Private Limited, publishers of Deccan Herald and Prajavani Newspaper in 2014 April as General Manager Circulation. Job profile includes marketing strategies and Innovations. Prior to TPML he worked with Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd. for 20 years and was instrumental in launching and re-launching various editions, including the Bengaluru edition of The Times of India in 1996. He had a short stint at Diligent Media Corporation, where he was responsible for launching DNA in Mumbai (2005). He successfully launched and sustained The Times of India’s Goa edition for five years (2008-14), while also overseeing parts of southern Maharashtra. Oliver graduated from Mangalore University, Alumni from St Aloysius group of institutions.
Deputy General Manager - Printing, THG Publishing, India
Graduate from College of Engineering, Anna University in Printing Technology. Started his career in printing with Times of India in Kandivli branch and worked for 2 years. Later Joined "The Hindu Group of Publications (THG)" as a Junior Engineer in Printing department and rose to the position of Deputy General Manager. Currently heading the Chennai Printing Plant - the flagship plant of THG - that houses the three printing presses comprising of nine printing towers- all heatset, and heading the plant operations of Tirupati branch. He is also the Quality Head of printing centers of THG in TN, Kerala and Karnataka.
Mohanraj headed the WAN-IFRA "ICONS project" for The Hindu group and was responsible for the group winning the first INCQC memberships for their Chennai and Trivandrum Plants in 2010. He also initiated and guided the Chennai printing team to win 'Gold' in the Best in Print Category at Asian Media Awards competition. He has done many cost saving projects and process improvement projects for THG, including "Automatic correction of Fanout in Newspaper printing".
Executive Editor & Director, Malayala Manorama, India
Jayant Mammen Mathew is the Executive Editor and Director of Malayala Manorama Company, one of India’s largest media companies with a significant presence in Print, Television, Radio and Onine. He was the President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS), for the year 2018-19.
Malayala Manorama is India’s largest selling regional newspaper with a daily circulation of 2.3 million. The company also publishes more than 40 titles in various languages and operates Radio Mango, Kerala’s No. 1 FM station and ManoramaOnline, one of the largest portals. Jayant played a major role in the company venturing in to television broadcasting.
He spends considerable time expanding the television business. MM TV, broadcasts Manorama News, a 24-hour news and current affairs television channel and Mazhavil Manorama, an entertainment channel. Both the television channels, have won numerous awards, including the best regional news channel of India. Recently MM TV launched ManoramaMax, the first Malayalam news and entertainment OTT streaming service.
In addition to his role at MM TV, he continues to provide leadership in Malayala Manorama Company, where he oversees several publications and continues to write for the newspaper on business, economics and technology.
Prior to joining Malayala Manorama, he was an Associate Editor at Electronic News, a unit of Cahners Publishing in New York, where he specialized in finance and technology coverage. His articles at Electronic News won the Gold Award for feature series instituted by the American Society of Business Publication Editors. Jayant wrote for Malayala Manorama and The Week from New York for several years. He co-wrote the Man of the Year feature for The Week that won a South Asian Journalists Association Award in 2000.
Jayant also worked for Bridge News, a financial news service in New York. His articles have appeared in several publications, including Business Week Online and The Economic Times. Prior to this, he worked in corporate finance for News Corp. in New York and Fox Television in Los Angeles. He received a BE in electronics and communication engineering from Mangalore University, an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and an MS in journalism from Columbia University, New York.
Principal, Shripad Kulkarni & Associates, India
With over 30 years of professional exposure in the Media industry, this media veteran has handled a wide spectrum of renowned brands covering the entire gamut of product categories in various lifecycle stages. He also ran a media training and consultancy company M:Ideas, which was bought over by Carat Integra. As
CXO in Carat, Percept Media and Vizeum, Shripad has built strong media businesses. He has been on many Industry bodies like MRUC, BARC and teaches at many reputed Institutions. He is a reputed trainer and has conducted over 200 workshops in Media Ad Sales, Media Planning & Buying. He advises many media in Strategy, Content and Ad Sales. This number cruncher with a Masters Degree in Statistics, a JBIMS MBA, and a Diploma in Operations Research Society of India, now runs a Consulting Company. Shripad Kulkarni Consults on big media transformation projects on the supply side as well as demand side.
Senior Business Advisor, Prothom Alo, Bangaldesh
Sayyied Kabir has been with Prothom Alo, the most influential national daily of Bangladesh, for the last ten years. In his capacity as Chief Business Consultant he works closely with the Editor and heads of departments in formulating organizational strategy as well as overseeing operations related to advertisement, circulation, marketing and business development. Early in his career, Sayyied was a founding team member of ETV, Bangladesh’s first private terrestrial and satellite TV network in 1998-2002 and also set up broadcast operations in the UK in 2001. Later, as CEO he helped establish the country’s leading private FM radio station, Radio Foorti. In between, he had stints in advertising, media consultancy and human resource development. Sayyied had studied Economics at Rice University and later did his post-graduate in Boston University. Before broadcast and media, he worked in the development sector in microcredit, population studies and food policy research. In addition to his long-standing association with Prothom Alo, he owns and runs a financial asset management company in Dhaka.
CEO, IPG Mediabrands, India
CEO India & South East Asia, Havas Media Group
Rotating Equipment Performance Specialist, SKF, India
- 41 years of experience in the field of Maintenance. An Employee of Madras Fertilizers from 1978 till 1990.
- 21 years of practical hands-on experience with the majority of equipment covering Fertilizer, Oil & Gas, Petrochemicals, Chemicals, pulp and paper, Steel melting and hot rolling, Iron ore processing, copper smelting, traditional power, nuclear power, and Ceramics.
- 20 Years of consulting experiences in implementing RCM, Maintenance strategy review, criticality Analysis, Asset structuring in ERPs, spare parts optimization, Bill of material preparations, CBM implementation and RCA.
- Conducting Plant performance assessments, Gap analysis and suggesting Improvement plans
- Project Management for Implementing SAP PM module, Maximo, Oracle EAM and data structuring and migration support from Ellipse, Aventis and other CMMS.
- 8 Years in SKF Indonesia as a Reliability Services Manager at National level and followed by REP core team member for SKF Asia for the past two years.