Star India Appoints Gautam Thakar As Chief Executive Officer For Star Sports

STAR INDIA Managing Director Sanjay Gupta, declared the appointment of Gautam Thakar as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) - Star Sports. In his new role, Gautam will head the sports broadcast business as its Chief Executive Officer. His appointment is effective January 2018.

On the appointment, Sanjay Gupta said that they are happy to welcome Gautam into the Star India family to head the next paradigm in sports broadcasting. He brings to the table a wealth of knowledge and proven strategic abilities. As a Star, there is always a bold growth agenda and the team is confident that Gautam will aid in taking the multi-sports culture that Star has pioneered in India, to the next level.

Gautam brings over 20 years of deep operating and leadership experience. He started his career as a brand manager with P&G in India and then led baazee as a founding management team member to become the No. 1 e-commerce company in India (acquired by eBay in 2004).

He spent 10 years at eBay in a variety of leadership roles (Country Manager for eBay India, global marketing leader for eBay’s International markets as well as leader of eBay’s multi-billion dollar cross-border business, CEO of shopping (an eBay acquisition) and general manager responsible for building a multi-hundred million dollar Adtech business) before leading the turnaround at LivingSocial (acquired by Groupon).

Gautam has an MBA from IIM, Lucknow and prior to that a Bachelor’s in Commerce from Sydenham College, Mumbai.