Google Executive Sajith Sivanandan to Lead Disney+ Hotstar India

Sajith Sivanandan joins Disney as Executive Vice President and Head of Disney+ Hotstar India, reporting to Rebecca Campbell, President of Disney's Content Group and International Operations and K. Madhavan, President of Disney Star.

Sivanandan will join us in October from Google, where he is currently Managing Director and Chief Business Officer, Google Pay and Next Billion User Initiatives, Asia Pacific. He will oversee Disney+ Hotstar's overall business operations in India with direct responsibility for setting the streaming service's strategic business priorities and charting a roadmap for the streamer's growth. He will also work closely with local leaders in international markets as well as the Disney+ team in the United States to drive the growth of the service.

Disney+ Hotstar is currently the market leader in the Indian streaming space. Much of that success was due to the popularity of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, to which they held the rights, over the past five years. However, in June, Disney+ Hotstar handed over the digital rights to the tournament for the next five years, after a bidding war, to Viacom18, a television and streaming group backed by billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani, who paid some $3 billion. Disney retained the broadcast rights for $3.1 billion.

Sivanandan began his professional career at Star TV, now a Disney brand, in India in 1996, where he managed the North India market for Channel V music channel. He spent 14 years at Google. He replaces another Google executive, Sunil Rayan, who resigned in March and is now chief commercial officer of machine learning solutions company Moloco.

Campbell said, "I am delighted to have Sajith join our leadership team and lead the innovative team at Disney+ Hotstar. His deep experience in the region, combined with his strong leadership and business management skills, will benefit greatly to Disney+ Hotstar as the platform enters its next phase of growth."

Madhavan said, "After experiencing rapid growth in recent years, the OTT [streaming] market in India has entered a transformational phase that requires a resourceful approach to how we innovate for growth. Wealth of Sajith's experience he's gained over the years makes him the best person to lead Disney+ Hotstar on this journey."

Sivanandan added, "Disney and Star are brands with an incredibly rich history of innovation, user focus and storytelling, and Disney+ Hotstar brings these attributes together perfectly. The opportunity to return home where I started my career and to work alongside a very talented team to serve Disney+ Hotstar users in India and emerging countries is both a privilege and an honour."

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