Raj Nayak is currently designated Executive Vice President -Sales and Marketing at Star India Ltd. He is responsible for the entire Advertising Sales revenue for all STAR Channels, in India including partnership ventures like Channel [V], National Geographic Channel and Vijay TV. Raj is a key member of the Management team at Star India and also on the Board of Indya.com and Vijay TV.
He joined Star in 1993 as an Area Sales Manager for North and East, based in Delhi. Within a span of 3 years he was promoted to Sales Manager India, Star Sports. Its main competitor across the region was ESPN. In 1996 both the channels had indulged in a fair bit of undercutting with an aim to gain viewership. This however did not provide either with significant gains. At this stage they realised there was more to gain by working together and they came together to form a new venture ESPN STAR Sports.
At that stage Sports as a category was not established and more so was and to a large extent continues to be a male skewed channel. The nature of the channel and the climate in which it operated ensured full coverage on key i.e. India/Pak matches and not much otherwise. It was at this stage at which Raj changed the way Sports Television was marketed in the country. He grew within the channel and in 3 years was promoted to Vice President where he played an important role in strategizing, packaging and marketing of the 1999 World Cup Cricket - One of his largest successes to date.
Raj then moved to Mumbai as Sr. Vice President to head the Sales and Marketing of all Star Channels i.e. STAR World, Vijay TV, Channel [V], STAR Movies, STAR Gold, STAR News and National Geographic Channel in the market. Having successfully grown the Niche Channels he was given the responsibility to head Sales of the entire Network which is his current role.
Raj started his career with Tata Economic Consultancy Services as a Consultant. After a 2-year stint with the company he moved to The Indian Post, a J K Group company as Deputy Marketing Manager. He then moved to Sunday Mail where he launched the Southern Editions as Regional Manager. He was also responsible for the operation of Independent Television Company in Bangalore both owned by the Dalmia Group. He joined the Thapar Group after a 2-year stint with the Dalmia Group of Companies as Sr. Marketing Manager for The Pioneer Newspaper, when it relaunched under Vinod Mehta as the Editor.
