MUMBAI: It was in December 2013 when Star India management got on board a business head to bring alive its ‘dead’ general entertainment channel (GEC), Star Utsav.
The channel launched in 2004, saw for the first time, a business head in Pratik Seal (former Life OK marketing head) in December 2013. However, the stint didn’t last for long as Seal decided to move on and join an e-commerce start-up, Housing.com, as chief marketing officer (CMO).
When contacted, Seal confirmed the news to indiantelevision.com. “It’s been two months since I joined the new company.”
Replacing him is former Star India vice president Jyotsna Viriyala, who has been elevated to the business head of the channel. She has over 15 years of work experience spanning advertising, marketing and broadcast in the areas of media planning and buying, research, marketing, business strategy, operations and general management.
When asked about his decision of joining an e-commerce space, Seal answered, “I hail from a marketing background. Be it Micromax where I helped set up the brand or jumping into Life OK which was again a start-up channel and now an e-commerce start-up. I like to build brands right from the scratch.”
His agenda for Housing.com is to be the number one in the e-commerce and m-commerce space in the next year and a half and then expand it further to take it to the next level.
Armed with 14 years of experience, he started his career in 1998 as an account executive with Basic4 Advertising. After spending two years with the company, he moved to Ties2Family.com as assistant manager, marketing and then to FCB Ulka as senior account executive.
After spending about two years with the agency, Seal joined Lowe as senior brand services manager and within three years, went on to become senior brand services director.
Viriyala, a student from Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), has worked in companies like Mindshare Fulcrum, JWT and Traveljini.com for the span of six years. She then moved to Star News as associate vice-president for the duration of two years. Her last stint before joining Star Utsav was as vice-president of Star India.
