Zee News' Jitesh Rajdeo joins Amagi Media Labs as director of sales & alliances

Bangalore-based technology and media startup Amagi Media Labs has appointed Jitesh Rajdeo as its director of sales & alliances for India and neighbouring countries. Prior to Amagi, Jitesh was the chief sales officer at Zee News, where he was responsible for sales of all channels under Zee News bouquet.

"We are committed to maximising effectiveness of our clients' media spends. Rajdeo shares that commitment and our vision of high growth. I am happy to have him join our senior leadership team and bring his prodigious media sales experience to the company," said KA Srinivasan, co-founder Amagi.

"I am confident that Rajdeo will add the much needed impetus to our revenue growth ambition in the coming years. He has the skill set, calibre and resolution to make Amagi a high growth company," added Amagi business head LS Krishnan.

Rajdeo has over 20 years of experience in sales and prior to ZEE, he was the revenue head - ad sales at Diligent Media Corporation Ltd (the company behind English broadsheet DNA). He has been in various sales leadership positions with Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd for more than a decade. He holds a masters degree in marketing management from Chetna Institute of Management (Mumbai) and had earlier worked at companies like MUKTA Advertising and Asian Age newspaper, among others.

Amagi was founded by Subramanian, Srinivasan KA and Srividhya Srinivasan in February 2008. The company facilitates geographic targeting of television advertisements. Simply put, if viewers in Mumbai and Delhi are watching the same TV channel, they will still see different ads, depending on their geographical location. For example, if it is a Magicbricks.com ad, the Mumbai viewer will see the ad for properties in Mumbai, while the Delhi guy will see the same ad for properties in Delhi, because of the technology developed by the company.

On his appointment, Rajdeo said, "I am convinced that geo-targeting is the future of television and Amagi is set to occupy the centre stage in this evolving media space. I am excited to join Amagi at this crucial juncture and look forward to scaling its revenues as Amagi expands its horizons."

Headquartered in Bangalore, the company has over 150 employees in more than 20 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata. It works with over 15 TV channels offering region-specific advertising on national TV channels in over 100 cities and has more than 2,000 clients on its roster.

In June last year, the company had raised Rs 31.25 crore ($5.3 million) in funding from Mayfield Fund, a global venture capital firm with $2.7 billion under management. Existing investor Nadathur Group, an investment firm founded by Infosys' co-founder NS Raghavan also participated in the round. As part of the funding, Vikram Godse from Mayfield India Advisors had joined the board of the company.