Mumbai: Viacom18 on Thursday appointed Jyoti Deshpande as chief executive officer with immediate effect. She serves on the boards of Network18 and investee companies Balaji Telefilms and Saavn Media.

In her new assignment, Deshpande will help bring synergies across all of Reliance’s media interests and investments and further equip the company to drive significant growth opportunities as the industry embraces digital transformation, said the statement.

“Viacom18 is poised to grow as a truly integrated media company across broadcast, OTT and content studio business spanning general entertainment, movies and sports across languages,” said Network18 chairman Adil Zainulbhai. “Given Jyoti’s rich experience in the media sector around content, distribution and monetisation across traditional and emerging platforms, we believe she is best placed to lead the company and its operations.” 

Deshpande brings over 27 years of experience in the media and entertainment business. Prior to this, she joined Reliance Industries in 2018 as president - media platform and content, after having successfully built a leading media company and pioneered its early disruptive entry into the OTT space. As a business leader in Reliance, Deshpande in the last three years, has leveraged her industry relationships to establish Jio Studios as a key player in the media value chain.