Disney India sees senior level exits

Disney India sees senior level exits

MUMBAI: It was in October, last year, that the news of Ronnie Screwvala deciding to step down as the managing director of Disney India (then Disney UTV) broke.

 

Screwvala, since then, has pursued his entrepreneurial goals and invested in various companies and Siddharth Roy Kapur has taken over the company's India operations, effective 1 January.

 

Nonetheless, the move has lead to many other changes in the company. In the recent past, many at the senior management have left the company.

 

The first one to leave after this change was the Disney UTV Media Networks managing director MK Anand. He is currently the managing director and chief executive officer at Times Television Network.

 

Anand had joined UTV Global Broadcasting in 2009 as CEO and after the Walt Disney acquisition in 2012, he was appointed the managing director of Disney UTV Media Networks.

 

He was followed soon by others. Two of its employees left to join Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainments. Gaurav Verma joined the production house as its new chief revenue officer while Manish Hari Prasad joined it, after being instrumental in getting the (Disney) studio its most successful film, ‘Chennai Express’, on board.

 

Verma , as Disney executive director theatrical distribution, handled worldwide theatrical distribution, while Prasad was the creative director of UTV.

 

The latest to move on from the network is Shikha Kapur. Kapur who was heading marketing for Studios, Broadcasting (youth and movie) and the Interactive business and served as the vice president of the company has joined Fox Star India as chief marketing officer.

 

As per industry sources, this isn’t the end of top management leaving the company. Many more will be soon following in biding goodbye to Disney India.

 

The sources blame Ronnie’s exit and Kapur’s elevation behind these exists.

 

We will have to just wait and watch what happens next.