YouTube names Gunjan Soni as country managing director for India
New Delhi, Apr 28 (PTI): YouTube on Monday announced the appointment of Gunjan Soni as the Country Managing Director for India. Soni has had successful stints at ZALORA, Star India and Myntra. She steps into her new role, following the exit of Ishan Chatterjee last year.
With over two decades of leadership experience spanning business, technology, marketing, and e-commerce, Soni is set to lead YouTube's growth and innovation efforts in India, the Alphabet-owned video platform said in a release.
Soni joins YouTube from ZALORA, where she served as Group CEO for six years based in Singapore. During her tenure, she was instrumental in introducing new categories and business models, fostering innovation, and enhancing user experience through personalisation and a successful loyalty program.
Soni also possesses significant Indian media and marketing experience, having worked as EVP at Star India and CMO at Myntra. Prior to that, she was a Partner at McKinsey in the Consumer and Marketing practice. She serves on the board of CBRE Group, a Fortune 500 company.
"YouTube's journey in India continues to be vibrant and dynamic, representing a country filled with immense creative energy and potential....Gunjan's deep understanding of the creator economy and India's video commerce landscape, combined with her leadership, will enable us to accelerate creator growth, unlock new opportunities, engage users, and contribute meaningfully to India's digital journey," Gautam Anand, Vice President, YouTube APAC said.
Soni said the way YouTube empowers creators and connects communities across India, is "truly inspiring".
"I am both humbled and thrilled to join this dynamic team and lead a platform that has long supported the powerhouse of talent that is the Indian creator economy," she said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
