MUMBAI: Media conglomerate Network18 on Wednesday announced the appointment of Vijay Sanil as CEO – language cluster. With over two decades of experience in the Media and Entertainment industry, Sanil joins News18 Network at a time when regional news is ever-growing and has made massive contributions to the network’s strength. News18 Network’s language cluster includes News18 Bangla, News18 Tamil, News18 Odia, News18 Kerala, News18 Kannada, News18 Assam & NE, News18 Lokmat and News18 Gujarati.

Sanil joined ZEEL as a Management Trainee in the year 2000 and grew through the ranks in the organization. In his journey of over 20 years at ZEEL, Sanil handled various Channels like Zee TV, Zee Cinema, & TV, & Pictures, Ten Sports, Zee Anmol, Regional Channels and HD portfolio among others. In his last role with Zee, Sanil was designated as President - Sales and was responsible for driving a significant piece of the ZEEL ad revenues.

Talking about his appointment, Sanil said, “Having been a passionate Sales Lead in Entertainment, Cinema & Sports genre, this opportunity opens a completely new chapter – News genre & a holistic perspective of Business. Truly  excited to lead News18’s regional news mandate to build an aggressive growth plan for the company in this rapidly evolving ecosystem and also, be part of a process of building a future-ready News network by creating new and sustainable connect nodes with audience & business fraternity”.

Sanil holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from Chetna College, Mumbai. He will be based in Mumbai and report to Network18 Broadcast News CEO Avinash Kaul. Karan Abhishek Singh, who was earlier the CEO for language cluster has already taken over charge of the Hindi news cluster.