MUMBAI: In line with its ambition to expand and accelerate growth in India through new investment and leadership, Discovery Networks has appointed Vikram Tanna as Vice President, Head of Advertising Sales and Business Head of Regional Clusters, South Asia. The current product suite has 11 unique content channels in the factual and lifestyle genres. Tanna takes over from Karamjit Dua who moves into a new role as head of new business and mergers and acquisitions in line with Discovery’s focus on inorganic growth opportunities in both linear and channel business with immediate effect.

Tanna will be based out of Mumbai and will report to Karan Bajaj, SVP and GM-South Asia, Discovery Networks Asia Pacific. Tanna will further strengthen the company’s efforts towards building engaged local audience franchises and re-instate its omni-channel platform play.

Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific SVP & GM-South Asia Karan Bajaj said, “India is a high-priority market for us and we have very aggressive growth ambitions here as we look to future-proof our business and build a broader product eco-system. I am thrilled to have someone of the calibre of Vikram Tanna joining our team. He brings the relevant product and revenue experience and strategic planning ability that will be integral to our efforts in re-defining our ad sales, improving workflow and growing our business nationally and across regional clusters.”

An industry veteran, Tanna brings with him over two decades of experience spanning the broadcast, gaming and online industries. Tanna joins from Star India where was the Senior Vice President leading Product & Revenue strategy for three of the major channel clusters- Hindi Movies & Music and HSM Regional Channels (West Bengal & Maharashtra). He has grown in various roles at Star from heading revenue for Channel V, Star Digital & V Events. Prior to which, Tanna was the revenue lead for Zapak Digital Entertainment that operated the online gaming portal. Earlier in his career, he worked with MTV for two years and with Star Movies and Star World.

Tanna has done MBA in marketing from Mumbai University and is a visiting faculty at management institutes in Mumbai.