MUMBAI: Former senior vice-president, new media of India TV Interactive, Arvind Mahendru has joined ESPN Star Sports as director of digital media.
Based in Delhi, Mahendru will report to James Miner, the senior vice-president of digital media for ESPN Star Sports (ESS), based in Singapore. He will also report to Sanjay Kailash, executive vice-president, ESPN Star Sports, India.
As the head of digital media, he will look after ESPN‘s properties like mobile, 3G, streaming and website from both the business and the development perspective.
Said Mahendru on his appointment, "ESS is the pioneer in the sporting arena. In terms of global sporting content across genres, it is not there on any other sports channel. My role is to look at innovative ways, where we could leverage 3G and 2.5G on the mobile space to deliver quality content to our audience."
According to him, digital contributes only about 2 per cent of total media spends in the industry and, therefore, his other responsibilities would be to leverage the flagship property of the company, its website ESPNStar.com. "We will use our website to increase flow of information to our users and expand our user database to increase ad sales revenue," he quips.
Having around 18 years of experience, Mahendru started his career with GlaxoSmithKline as management trainee in 1993. After that he did a three-year stint at Star TV India as manager operations. Among the other companies Mahendru worked for were Turner International, Trinity Platco, Times Internet Limited, Bharti Airtel and Group M. Mahendru has been associated with Star since 1995.
