JioStar has appointed Bhaskar Ramesh as Head of Entertainment Sales, Digital, marking a significant addition to its leadership team as the company accelerates its push into the fast-growing digital advertising space.
The appointment, effective immediately, sees Ramesh reporting directly to Kevin Vaz, CEO – Entertainment at JioStar. In his new role, he will lead the development and expansion of the entertainment vertical’s digital advertising business, overseeing strategy, client relationships, innovative ad products, and performance-driven campaigns across JioStar’s extensive content ecosystem.
Bhaskar Ramesh joins from Google India, where he spent more than a decade and most recently served as Director – Omnichannel Businesses. At Google, he headed teams responsible for Technology, FMCG, Automotive, Media & Entertainment, and other key verticals. Known for his deep expertise in consultative selling, strategic brand partnerships, and helping legacy businesses transition to digital-first models, Ramesh played a pivotal role in driving large-scale digitization initiatives for major Indian advertisers.
His arrival comes at a critical juncture for JioStar, the converged media entity born from the merger of Viacom18 and Star India. With commanding reach across linear television, JioCinema (now central to the JioStar digital experience), premium sports rights, Bollywood and regional cinema, original programming, and general entertainment, the platform is aggressively positioning itself as India’s leading converged media-tech powerhouse.
Industry insiders view the hire as a clear signal of JioStar’s intent to build a best-in-class, data-led advertising engine. Ramesh’s blend of technology pedigree, proven media and entertainment experience, and success in scaling omnichannel revenue streams aligns perfectly with the company’s focus on leveraging first-party data, precision targeting, contextual advertising, and measurable ROI to attract both traditional and digital-native brands.
This move follows a series of senior appointments in product, engineering, data science, and AdTech at JioStar, reflecting the organisation’s broader ambition to create a future-ready, integrated media and advertising platform capable of competing at global standards.
As digital video consumption surges and advertisers increasingly demand performance accountability, leaders like Ramesh—who understand both the creative power of premium content and the science of modern advertising—are expected to help JioStar capture a significantly larger share of India’s booming digital ad market in the years ahead.
The appointment is already being seen as a strong step toward deepening advertiser confidence and accelerating monetisation across JioStar’s unparalleled content library and audience scale.
