Sajith Sivanandan joins Disney as Executive Vice President and President of Disney+ Hotstar India, reporting to Rebecca Campbell, Head of Disney’s International Content and Operations Group, and K. Madhavan, President of Disney Star.
Sivanandan will join Google in October, where he is currently the Managing Director and Head of Business, Google Pay and Next Billion User Initiative, Asia Pacific. He will oversee Disney+ Hotstar’s overall business operations in India with direct responsibility for defining the streaming service’s strategic business priorities and mapping the product roadmap for streaming device growth. He will also work closely with local leadership in international markets as well as with the Disney+ team in the US to drive growth of the service.
Disney + Hotstar is currently the market leader in Indian streaming. Much of this success is due to the popularity of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, which they had the right to, over the past five years. However, in June, Disney+ Hotstar ceded 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 about $3 billion. Disney retained the rights to the broadcast for $3.1 billion.
Sivanandan began his career with Star TV, now a Disney brand, in India in 1996, managing the North Indian market for the music channel Channel V. He spent 14 years with Google. He replaced another Google executive, Sunil Ryan, who resigned in March and is now chief business officer of machine learning solutions company Moloco.
Campbell said, “I am delighted to have Sajith join our executive 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 greatly benefit Disney+ Hotstar as the platform begins its next phase of growth.”
Madhavan said, “Having experienced rapid growth in recent years, OTT [streaming] The market in India has entered a transformational phase that requires an innovative approach to the way we innovate in order to grow. Sajith’s wealth of experience gained over the years makes him the best person to lead a Disney+ Hotstar on this journey.”
Sivanandan added, “Disney and Star are two brands with a very rich history of innovation, user focus and storytelling, and Disney+ Hotstar brings these attributes together flawlessly. It is the opportunity to come back home where I started my career and work alongside a very talented team. Serving Disney+ Hotstar users in India and in emerging countries is a privilege and an honor at the same time.”
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