MUMBAI: In a move to strengthen its team, global video-on-demand player Netflix has hired two senior talents from India. Former YouTube Indian and Southeast Asia product partnerships head Gaurav Pradhan has joined Netflix as director business development Asia, effective from July 2016.

Meanwhile, Netflix LA has also appointed former Balaji Telefilms’s motion pictures president and Samosa Stories Entertainment founder director Swati Shetty.

Pradhan has more than 16 years of experience in business development and has served at Google in business development International product partnerships functions for a year. He has also been a part of Yahoo as the chief manager for telco operations and was the assistant manager for value added services in Hutchison Essar (now Vodafone).

Shetty, on the other hand, was the founder and director of Samosa Stories Entertainment, where she produced Umrika, a film written and directed by Prashant Nair and starring Suraj Sharma (Life of Pi) and Tony Revolori ( The Grand Budapest Hotel ).

The film was selected in the world cinema dramatic competition at the Sundance film festival 2015 and won the Audience Award. Umrika is represented by Beta Cinema internationally, and ICM Partners in North America.

Prior to that, Shetty had worked with Star India for five years as manager; and with Walt Disney International productions India as an executive director.

In April 2016, Netflix roped in Anthony Zameczkowski as vice president, business development for Asia-Pacific. Zameczkowski came with over 17 years of experience in the media and technology industry. At Netflix, his mandate will include leading and managing strategic partnerships and business development in the region.