Mumbai, September 9, 2026: Network18 has announced the elevation of Ganesh Iyer as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), expanding his mandate to drive the organisation’s marketing, branded content and intellectual property (IP) agenda across its diverse portfolio of businesses and brands.
Iyer, who previously served as Chief Brand Officer at Network18, has been responsible for strengthening and building the company’s portfolio of news brands while leading creative thinking across marketing campaigns and branded content initiatives. In his new role, he will take on a broader strategic responsibility spanning Branded Content, IP and Marketing across the organisation.
As CMO, Iyer will work closely with leadership teams across Network18’s business clusters and brands, including EBN, ILC, News18 Studio, Firstpost, Moneycontrol, Network18 Connected and Creator18. His expanded mandate will focus on developing a more integrated approach to brand strategy, marketing and business growth.
Marketing heads across the company’s brands will have a dotted-line reporting relationship to Iyer, enabling closer collaboration and greater alignment across the organisation’s marketing efforts.
Iyer will also continue to oversee a specialised central unit led by Sharmistha Gupta, which will focus on developing new ideas, strategic pitches and brand initiatives across Network18’s businesses. The creative and promo teams under Aman and Sonali will also continue to operate under Iyer’s supervision.
Alongside Iyer’s expanded role, Network18 has announced an enhanced mandate for Mihir Bhatt, who joined the organisation in April as Chief Content Officer for News18 Studio. He will now serve as Chief Content Officer for Branded Content, leading branded content initiatives across the News18 Studio, EBN and ILC teams.
Bhatt brings experience in creating marquee intellectual properties and driving revenue innovation. In his expanded role, he will support Mitul and Smriti, while continuing to report to Shiv for the News18 Studio business.
To strengthen collaboration between ideation and execution, a subset of the central ideation team led by Rahul Thagele will move to work directly with Bhatt. The closer integration of the ideas team with the Studios is expected to create greater ownership across the content development process while improving turnaround times.
The organisational changes are designed to allow Iyer to focus on the broader strategic and organisation-wide marketing agenda, while giving Shiv, Bhatt and the Studios team greater ownership of the journey from ideas to implementation.
The new structure reflects Network18’s ambition to build larger and more impactful opportunities around its brands, audiences and partners by bringing marketing, branded content and IP capabilities closer together.
Network18 expressed confidence that the changes will enable the organisation to think bigger, move faster and unlock new opportunities across its growing portfolio of brands and content businesses.
