Jagdish Kumar moves on from Hathway; Rajan Gupta made MD

Leading MSO and cable broadband service provider, Hathway Cable and Datacom, has announced a series of major changes in its top-management post a meeting of its board of directors held in Mumbai. 

Jagdish Kumar, Managing Director & CEO, has moved on from the company w.e.f. November 25, 2016. Kumar took charge as MD & CEO of Hathway in December 2012 and led the company’s growth through the digitisation phase establishing its position as one of the leading digital cable TV and broadband service providers in the country. 

With the exit of Jagdish Kumar, Hathway has announced Rajan Gupta as its new Managing Director. Prior to the appointment, Gupta was serving as President of the Hathway Broadband business since 2014, leading the company’s aggressive foray into high-speed cable broadband services in the country. With a broadband subscriber base of close to 0.8 million & services reaching more than 3.7 million homes, Gupta is credited with establishing and building a profitable broadband business for Hathway. 

With most MSOs in the country expanding their business and entering the cable broadband space, Hathway has been a step ahead in offering cutting-edge broadband services under Gupta’s leadership with continued investments in high-speed technology such as Docsis 3.0 and GPON FTTH, providing 50 MBPS speed plans, constant upgradations in customer service and increasing market share. 

Gupta’s mandate in his new role would be to build on Hathways’ leadership in broadband and video business and take Hathway to the next phase of strategic transformation of creating a profitable consumer centric organisation by maximizing innovation, execution and collaboration. 

He brings with him 18 years of diverse experience across various aspects of management, sales, marketing, P&L management, revenue growth management, Go to Market strategy, business turnaround and manufacturing operations across different regions of India. In the course of his career, he has handled various business leadership roles with Tata Teleservices, Hindustan Coca Cola and Asian Paints. 

Meanwhile, in another major move, TS Panesar, current President of Hathways’ Video Business, has been elevated to the position of Chief Executive Officer - Video Business. Having joined the company in December 2014, Panesar is an industry veteran with two decades of leadership experience in the consumer durables and TV broadcasting industry having worked with leading brands like ESPN Star Sports, Star TV. Having multi-functional experience, Panesar was part of the core management team that was instrumental in setting up the ESPN Star Sports brand in India and building its DTH business. He has been credited with bringing a transformational shift in the cable TV operations of the company, making it more transparent, systematic & process driven. 

Under Panesar’s leadership, Hathway has aggressively grown in DAS 3 markets having crossed 11 million digital subscribers and launched many breakthrough initiatives such as “Hathway Connect”, the state-of-the-art, innovative portal for LCOs that has been widely appreciated by the industry & LCO fraternity for increasing their revenue and reducing operational costs. In addition, he has also led the launch of new in-house channels, rebranding & repositioning the current stable to create a robust portfolio as well as leading the company’s foray into Value Added Services (VAS) offering a premium customer experience. 

With this senior-management rejig, Hathway has set itself for a new, aggressive growth path to become the leading digital cable TV and broadband services provider by a great distance.