I left Kashmir on the night of 19 January 1990. I was seventeen, and we had no choice. Everything after that I built from scratch.
In the years that followed, I rose to the top of some of India's biggest media houses. As CEO of the TV Division at The Times Group, and later CEO of Network18 (Broadcast & Publishing) and Managing Director of A+E Networks | TV18, I led some of the country's largest news and entertainment portfolios.
Over the next three decades I built a career across J. Walter Thompson (HTA), Discovery Communications, Star TV, NDTV, Times Television Network and Network18, serving as CEO for sixteen years in one of the world's most demanding news media environments: the world's largest democracy, with channels in more than a dozen languages, through changes of government, and with business news run through every economic cycle. I sit on the Managing Committee of The Advertising Club (2026–27).
Fear can push. It cannot pull. It carried me further than confidence ever did, until the question changed from what I was running from to what I was climbing for.
Underneath all of it was a belief I held long before I could put it into words: the way information moves through a society shapes that society. That was the forest I started in.
My memoir, The Next Mountain, was published by HarperCollins in July 2026. It was an Amazon bestseller on launch day. It reached #1 on Amazon.in in six categories and #19 among all books, and went into reprint within ten days of launch. Today I speak on resilience, leadership and how business and media work together, and advise CEOs and founders. I live in Mumbai with my family.