Paytm's Deepak Abbot joins Times Internet as its head of mobile strategy

Times Internet Ltd, the internet & mobile venture of Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd, has appointed Deepak Abbot as its head of mobile strategy. In his new role, Abbot will help define and strategise the growth plans for mobile across the company's businesses. He will report to Satyan Gajwani, CEO of Times Internet.

The development was first reported by Medianama.

Abbot has over 15 years of work experience and prior to Times Internet, he was the associate vice president of Paytm, the digital goods and services marketplace owned by Noida-headquartered One97 Communications Ltd. Before that, he was working at Reliance Entertainment – Digital as its chief product officer. He had earlier also worked at companies like Reliance-owned Zapak.com, Satyam Computers, and CyberMedia.

Note that this is not Abbot's first stint at Times Internet. Back in 2000, he had joined the company as its product manager for e-commerce, a position he held for close to four years.

Times Internet claims to be the largest Indian online media entity, with over 40 million monthly visitors across its digital destinations (as of Jan this year). Its portfolio includes news, lifestyle content, entertainment, ecommerce, mobile VAS, music & movie streaming, and local services.

The company had invested an undisclosed amount in Delhi-based GradeStack Pvt Ltd, which provides web- and mobile-based education courses under the same brand name in March this year. GradeStack, which was part of TIL's TLabs startup acceleration programme last year, had already secured Rs 10 lakh as part of the programme.

It also acquired majority stake in Mumbai- based CouponDunia Media Pvt Ltd, which runs online coupon service CouponDunia.in, for an undisclosed amount and merged its existing deals site TimesDeal with CouponDunia. Before that, online nightlife and restaurant guide TimesCity, part of Times Internet Limited (TIL), had acquired Delhi-based DineOut Services Pvt Ltd, the company behind the online restaurant reservation platform DineOut.

In the last year, Times Internet has made two acquisitions, six global partnerships, four minority investments and over 20 investments into startups through accelerator TLabs.