Rajeev Beotra named CEO of HT English

Rajeev Beotra, who recently quit Star India as President of Ad Sales, has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer for the HT English business. Beotra will take the charge as CEO from December 2016.

He will be responsible for the P&L of HT English including Delhi, Mumbai, Punjab and other editions and will report to Rajiv Verma, CEO of HT Media Limited. Beotra had joined Star India from Hindustan Times in January 2014.

With Beotra leading the HT English business, Venkat Shankar will also be joining HT Media as Executive Director for Revenue and will join HT’s executive team reporting to Verma. The media group has also appointed Benoy Roychowdhury as Chief Relationship Officer (CRO) & Executive Director for Growth Businesses.

Beotra has over 24 years of working experience across various industries and geographies. At Star, he also managed the digital revenues for Hotstar for sports properties. Additionally, Beotra spearheaded the creation of the revenue model for new domestic leagues such as Indian Super League and Pro Kabaddi League, and the IPL digital revenue model, and led the sales organisation restructuring across the sports and entertainment organisations, as well as the sales automation initiative.

Beotra has been mandated to synergize the HT English editions, ensure speedier decision-making, optimize the price benefits for customers, and deliver HT’s commitment to give readers an exceptional media experience that is informative, educational, and entertaining, and a key part of their daily lives.

Shankar is a highly regarded professional with over 26 years of diverse work experience, including senior business leadership roles in FMCG and investment banking. Prior to joining HT, he was Investment Director, Peepul Capital Advisors, a mid-market private equity fund. In this capacity, Shankar drove the transition from a proprietary to an institutional fund and was instrumental in acquiring talent, creating and upgrading internal investment and reporting processes, and improving capabilities to create external force multipliers. He has also worked extensively in PepsiCo India Holdings in various sales and general management roles.