Tata Play Limited - Fact file

Saurabh Agrawal is the Group Chief Financial Officer of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata group of companies. Saurabh joined Tata Sons in June 2017.

In a career spanning over 30 years, Saurabh has been the Head of Investment Banking in India for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Head of Corporate Finance business in India and South Asia for Standard Chartered Bank and also the Head of Strategy of the Aditya Birla Group. In his role as Group CFO, in addition to the businesses that he chairs, Saurabh is focused on driving financial performance and strategy of the group including capital allocation, investment management decisions and portfolio optimization.

Mr. Ankur Verma, a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering and PGDM from IIM, Calcutta has around 25 years of experience in Investment Banking, Capital Markets and Corporate Strategy.

At present, Mr. Verma is Group Chief Strategy Officer at Tata Sons Private Limited, where he has responsibilities in strategy, corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions. Previously, he was Managing Director (Investment Banking Division) in Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and also Group Manager & Head, Business Planning in Infosys Technologies Limited – Corporate Planning Group. He currently serves on the boards of several Tata group companies.

As President of The Walt Disney Company India and Star India, K Madhavan drives the strategy and growth of the company, responsible for the vast Disney, Star, and Disney+ Hotstar businesses and operations across General Entertainment, Sports, Direct-to-consumer and the Studios business.

Mr. Madhavan joined Star India in 2009 as its South Head. Under his leadership, the company built a thriving regional entertainment portfolio. Previously, he was the driving force behind Asianet’s growth as the undisputed leader in Malayalam with more than 50% of market share, serving as MD and CEO from 2000-2008.

He currently also serves as: -

• President of the Indian Broadcasting & Digital Foundation (IBDF)
• Director at BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council) India
• Chairman of National Committee of Media & Entertainment CII (Confederation of Indian Industry)

Prior to joing the media sector, Mr. Madhavan was in the banking and corporate finance sector.

Mr. Mathew Cyriac is the Co-founder and Chairman designate of Florintree Advisors; a Mumbai based Alternative Asset Manager. He was a Senior Managing Director at The Blackstone Group, Private Equity Group and served as its and Co-Head of Private Equity at Blackstone Advisors India Pvt Ltd till February 2017.

Mr. Cyriac joined Blackstone India in April 2006 as the second permanent employee. He is credited with building the Blackstone PE business to close to $3 bn. Assets under management.

Before joining Blackstone in 2006, he served as the Head of Corporate Development and Strategy at iGate Global Solutions based in Fremont California. Mr. Cyriac also served as the Chief Financial Officer of Quintant Services, where he led all the financing and other strategic transactions of it and its eventual sale to iGate.

He was a Vice President in the Investment Banking Group at CSFB Los Angeles, for two years, where he led several equity and debt offerings, and merger and acquisition transactions. Mr. Cyriac also worked in the Private Equity Group at Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette for over four years.

S. Devarajan founded Transmation Consulting with a mission to provide High Technology companies a single window platform to accelerate and transform their business strategies; to optimize operational efficiency and fuel expansion & growth.

He was the Chairman, Board of Directors of ADC India Communications ltd, a publicly listed company 72% owned by CommScope Inc, USA. He was the Managing Director of Cisco Systems, India. An industry veteran with more than 44 years of experience in the Technology sector, Dev managed Cisco’s largest R&D Centre established outside USA. He also advised and assisted in the setting up of the Cisco Development Centre in China. Prior to joining Cisco, Dev was the Managing Director of Tata Elxsi Ltd.

He sits on the Board of Prime Focus Ltd, Prime Focus Technologies Ltd. Dev is a member of the Investment Committee Board of the Karnataka State owned KARSEMVEN, a venture capital fund.

Sudhanshu Vats is the Deputy Managing Director at Pidilite Industries Limited. An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, he has a career spanning 30 years across the FMCG and Media sectors with a track record of propelling significant business growth and creating long-term value for all stakeholders of the Company.

He was the Managing Director and CEO at EPL Limited. He also spent eight years as the MD and Group CEO of Viacom 18 Media Private Limited.

He spent about 20 years at Unilever in India in sales, marketing and general management roles. His last role in Unilever was VP Laundry (South Asia) and Global VP – Radiant brand.

During 2004-2005, Sudhanshu worked with BP in India as Vice President and led the Castrol Master brand re-launch.

He has been the Chairman of the National Media and Entertainment Committee of CII, Vice President of Indian Broadcasting Foundation and Director at Broadcast Audience Research Council. He is on the board of ASCI. He is also on the Global Advisory Board of the Columbia University, New York. He serves on the advisory board of a number of NGOs.

Mrs. Varsha Purandare has varied experience of 36 years in Credit, Forex, Treasury, Capital Markets, Investment Banking, and Private Equity businesses of State Bank of India (SBI) and SBI Capital Markets Ltd (SBICAPS) across geographies domestic and globally.

She served on various Boards and Committees of several Businesses of SBI and Other Institutions. Headed ~150 meetings of CCCC (highest credit committee of SBI) as Chief Credit Officer/Chief Credit & Risk Officer (CCO/CCRO) of SBI. She is an effective and influential Leader.

Mr. Harit Nagpal is the Managing Director and CEO of Tata Play Limited since January 2011. He has previously worked with various other reputed Companies namely Shoppers Stop, Pepsi, Marico and Lakme before joining Vodafone in 2001. Has nearly 4 decades of experience of which 9 years have been with Vodafone where before leaving he was Group Marketing Director of Vodafone, plc, UK.