That was fast. And more than interesting! Why so? Because the development comes literally on the heels of news that James Murdoch and former Star and Disney India head Uday Shankar backed Bodhi Tree Systems has increased its stakeholding in Viacom18.
Getting on to the main point, Viacom18 has brought on board Google’s Kiran Mani as the CEO of its digital business, The Economic Times reports. In this role, Mani will be responsible for spearheading the growth of JioCinema, which has disrupted the video streaming market with its free proposition.
Mani is currently Google’s general manager & MD for Android and Google Play for APAC region.
Mani has been associated with Google for nearly 13 years now, having joined the company in March 2010 as head of Sales-India. That is not why his appointment is so interesting though. A look at Mani’s LinkedIn profile shows that the techie has been an angel investor and board advisor at Bodhi Tree since 2014 (emphasis ours).
And referring back to the news that Bodhi Tree Systems has increased its stakeholding in Viacom18, it has also been reported that Shankar is currently in the process of putting together a new leadership team (again emphasis ours).
For the record, aside from Mani’s long tenure at Google, he also had prior stints with Microsoft, Ogilvy and IBM.
