Zeel hires Unilever's Punit Misra to head domestic broadcast business

Zeel hires Unilever's Punit Misra to head domestic broadcast business

Punit Misra

MUMBAI: The Essel group owned Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL) has filled the missing peg on its leadership roster: the CEO of its domestic broadcast business.

Come 1 October 2016, former Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) senior executive and careerist Punit Misra will be stepping into those shoes at India’s leading media and entertainment major and will be directly reporting to ZEEL MD and CEO Punit Goenka.

In recent times, ZEEL has been strengthening its senior management team to help it achieve its ambitious targets.

Last year, it brought in family member and Punit's younger brother and technopreneur Amit Goenka to head its international broadcast business.

Earlier this year, it spun off its broadcast network sales into another company called Zee Unimedia which is headed by COO Ashish Sehgal.

Misra, the new senior joinee, has had a long association with HUL and was last serving as as executive director & vice president - customer development. His responsibilities included heading sales. He joined HUL as a management trainee in 1996.

Since then, he has worked in leadership roles across customer development, brand building, brand development and general management within HUL, as well as in the global customer development team of Unilever.

He was also the member of the management Committee at HUL. As head of sales of the largest FMCG company in India, he was responsible for the performance of HUL sales team - driving delivery of profitable and competitive top line growth for the organization.

Misra is an Electrical Engineering graduate from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (formerly University of Roorkee) and has a PGDBM in Finance and Marketing from XLRI, Jamshedpur.