Universal Music India's Ashish Joshi to join Dhingana as VP, biz development

Ashish Joshi, head of digital and business development (India & SAARC) at Universal Music India, is all set to join social music streaming site Dhingana as vice-president, business development. He is currently serving his notice period at Universal, post which he will join the company. Earlier, he had served as the general manager at Hungama Digital Media Entertainment for nearly three years.

Commenting on the appointment, Dhingana co-founder and CEO Snehal Shinde said, "We are expanding rapidly and focusing on providing a much wider music collection to our customers. Ashish's knowledge of how the music industry works and his expertise in this field will play a big role in taking Dhingana to the next level of growth," he added.

"With my prior experience in content acquisition and distribution for digital platforms in a B2B environment, it's only a logical step to join a B2C player. At Dhingana, I will get a chance to explore my entrepreneurial streak and help build a very strong consumer-facing brand in the rapidly growing streaming business," said Joshi.

Joshi holds a master's degree in Computer Software Applications from KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research.

Dhingana was set up in February 2007 by twin brothers Snehal and Swapnil Shinde. Today, the company has a collection of over 5 lakh free songs across 35 different genres – available across different platforms (iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Symbian) and devices (PCs and laptops). Headquartered in California, the company also has an office in Pune, and raised an undisclosed funding from Inventus Capital Partners and Helion Venture Partners in 2011.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)