IBT Media India has appointed Mohit Hira as President & Country Head of its India operations.
With seven digital editions in four languages, spread across the globe from US to Australia, IB Times is considered among the most trusted sources of real-time business news, intelligence and economic analyses. Its Indian edition (www.ibtimes.co.in) headquarted in Bengaluru and led by Chandra Mohan, Managing Director, has been operational since 2011.
“Hira’s mandate”, says Chandra Mohan, “is to create a brand out of a well-built product with market-facing initiatives and content reinforcement.” Engineered by IB Times’global team, the site has seen rapid growth in recent years and is well supported by advertisers. Apart from business news, technology, entertainment, sports and politics from India and the world constitute the news lineup in the India edition.
Dev Pragad, Managing Director, IB Times, EMEA, with whom the Indian operations are aligned, welcomed Mohit Hira on board and said, “We were very impressed by Mohit’s deep understanding of digital publishing. His background from advertising to publishing puts him in the perfect position to take IBT Media in India to the next level. We look forward to working very closely with him”.
“IB Times presents a unique opportunity to take a popular digital destination to the next level. In my interactions with Dev and Mohan, their infectious start-up attitude convinced me of the opportunity to leverage my experience. The website is rich in content and is engineered for on-the-go readers who need credible updates on business news through the day. Now it’s time to turn it into a consumer-facing brand and socialise it,” said Mohit Hira.
In his last assignment, Mohit Hira was Chief Executive & Publisher of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka owned Open Media Network which publishes Open Magazine. Since he took over the magazine in October 2014, it has witnessed significant revenue growth from advertising and other streams. Hira was also responsible for relaunching Open’s website, strengthening its sales team and repositioning the brand. Given his experience in advertising, marketing and both Print and Digital media, he is considered among the few senior resources who understands both content and consumers.Before joining Open, he was CEO at Hungama Digital Services (HDS) and Digital Head at J. Walter Thompson India, as well as Regional Business Head on the Airtel account. Hira had joined JWT from NIIT, where he was President of its B2C global online learning business that he had started. He was also the Chief Marketing Officer for NIIT’s retail individual training businesses and helped in the founding years of the NIIT University.
As Director-Times Internet Ltd where he was the brand custodian for the group’s website, www.indiatimes.com, he was responsible for incubation, marketing and usability of its portals.Before this, he was the Brand Head of The Economic Times (Delhi) and Navbharat Times at Bennett Coleman. Originally, a copywriter at Contract Advertising’s Kolkata office, Mohit Hira grew to take charge first as Creative Director and then the head of its Kolkata and Delhi offices.
An English (Hons.) graduate of Jadavpur University, Kolkata, Mohit is also an alumnus of Executive Development Programmes at ISB Hyderabad, IIM Ahmedabad and INSEAD Singapore where he was nominated to the Google Academy.
He will continue to be based in Delhi NCR and will work closely with the India and EMEA Managing Directors of IB Times.