Chennai: Girija Sankara Rao has taken a new assignment as Revenue Head of South for Network18 with the responsibility to drive the sales and reinforce the revenues of News 18 Network’s South Channels. His new stint is effective from 12th November 2018.
Giri will be reporting to Avinash Kaul – COO of TV18 & MD of A+E Networks | TV18. Rao will be operating from the Chennai Office.He replaces NS Easwaran who had joined to Vikatan Group as Chief Sales Officer.
Girija Sankara Rao will be responsible for driving the revenues of Network18 South Channels namely News 18 Tamilnadu, News 18 Kerala and News 18 Karnataka.
Giri has over two decades of experience in Print and Electronic Media Sales. Prior to joining Network18 he was the National Sales Head of Zee Tamil since August 2014. As revenuein charge of the Channel he was instrumental in driving Zee Tamil’s ad rates upward in tandem with the increasing viewership of the channel.
He played a decade long stint with Star India where he was handling the sales portfolio of the regional channel, dealing with all leading Corporate clients, Retailers and Advertising Agencies. Joining the organization as Manager – Sales in 2004, he went on to become AVP – Sales by building a strong team under him and touching high margins.
During his four years stint with Dainik Bhaskar, Rao was heading the Chennai Branch and later on he was elevated to transferred to Mumbai for handling the newly launched Gujarati daily Divya Bhaskar. He also worked for ABP group from 1998 to 2000 and Ankur Ads from 1996 to 1998.
Interestingly, GirijaSankaraRao was also a Platoon Commander in CRPF during his three years stint with the Para Military force.