After well over four months of will-he or won’t-he (see the comments to this post), Mohit Hira, Director (Marketing) has decided to quit Indiatimes (Times Internet Ltd). We’d heard about it yesterday at the IAMAI MVAS conference, and Afaqs has reported the same, albeit unconfirmed.
Now our sources have told us he is leaving, saying that Hiras notice period ends this week. However, Hira has declined comment – neither a confirmation nor a denial. Other industry sources say that Hira’s move was never really in doubt – we had asked, repeatedly, over the past couple of months and both Hira and Indiatimes denied it. As one comment on this post put it, when we had reported on Sunil Rajshekhar joining as President and COO of Indiatimes – “What’s not reported is the resignation Vineet Jain is refusing to accept – one of their most valued people has put in papers over two months ago. it’s an open secret and they don’t know how to handle it.”
Hira joined the Times Group in 2003 from Contract Advertising, where he was Head of its Delhi and Kolkata ops. Aside of Indiatimes, in the Times Group, he has been the Brand Head for Times Foundation, Navbharat Times and The Economic Times, Delhi, as well as its Resident Editor for ET.
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19 Comments until now.
Director Marketing was the least of his roles… he’s been running all their new projects as the Incubation head (relaunch of email, social network, social bookmarking, answers, women, movies, language editions of ET, the Indiatimes home page…) plus USability. And was also the single point of contact for the whole Group’s digital stuff. Like all good diamonds, many facets… c’mon Nikhil – get the guy’s bio right at least!
Ahh, so Indiatimes’ Jack-of-all-trades is out from there. Wonder who will they employ now to clean up the mess! A loss for the Jains. All the best to Mohit, of course!
I believe Arindam who was heading marketing has also quit Indiatimes couple of days back. Whats happening there?
Not connected I think… one went to do serious full-time marketing, the other’s looking to do something more challenging/interesting from what one hears. Indiatimes will survive… like always.
are the two starting something together? i believe they were very thick. similar background – advertising and internet
negative… they weren’t thick; just close ’cause they came from advertising and hit it off – that’s what mah source says. Arindam has joined Unitech. Don’t think Mohit’s headed there. Anyone laying any bets?
Has he left yet? Or is this still speculation. All the best to the man…
Lord Haw Haw: it’s no longer speculation.
Absolutely… he’s all packed and ready to go from what the folks on the floor there say.
Best of Luck to Mohit! I am sure he is going to much greener pastures!
For making this byte interesting.. it seems there is a change of industry from internet though remains overall in media.. any guesses? Radio, TV or Print?
indiatimes will miss him dearly and an irreparable damage
The latest on this: Mohit is likely to be replaced by three different people! considering the many hats he wore, one wonders whether three will be enough. Wonder what it’s costing Indiatimes and whether their Finance guys have figured out a way to factor this cost into their budgets…
the folks on the floor say that he is still attending office a couple of hours every day – is indiatimes not being able to digest his absence?
No yaar, insiders say he’s coming in for a few hours to wind up, handover etc… umbilical cords aren’t easy to cut (both ways) I guess. But he’s packed and going for sure – the question is where’s his ticket to…
Those who know the time and location of the farewell, better get there to find out I guess… LOL
Yeah… that’s all anyone knows. Just his farewell location. The mystery man is not letting on where he’s off to…if he himself knows, that is!
Quick update… 30th is his last day though he’s as involved as ever before in dousing fires – and then he’s out! Apparently, the brothers J have tried to hold him back via his friends in the Group but Mr H is set to go. He claims he’s taking a break for a month. The grapevine says he’s striking out on his own… c’mon man! kill the suspense please.
Okay folks… just an update.
Mohit Hira’s replacements are in – all three. Pradeep Gairola from Mid-Day, Avinash Mudaliar from in.com (how come you haven’t reported this, Nikhil?) and the reassignment of Ashutosh Sharma (who was looking after another project internally) as the Marketing Head.
That’s three for one! And, believe it or not, the last two were handpicked by Hira himself so it was part of a ’succession plan’ I guess.
Good luck, trinity. You have a pair of great shoes to step into – just don’t tread on each others’ toes :-)
As for Mohit, the buzz is he’s striking out on his own and has some aces up his sleeve.
Surprise, surprise! Mohit Hira has surfaced and, according to afaqs, it’s NIIT where he’s heading their elearning business (they don’t seem to have one now – so is this a new venture?). Wonder why NIIT took so long to realise that there’s something called elearning! Apparently the folks at Indiatimes are zapped – this is one move they weren’t expecting. The buzz was he was either startng something on his own or was to move to Bangalore with a startup or an established portal (AOL? Yahoo?) – and then he delivers this googly! Got to say “hats off!” As for Indiatimes, it looks like hard times ahead with severe cost-cutting… two agencies have been dropped, people are on a hit-list, cabs have been suspended, food subsidies are off… looks like Hira’s four replacements are working out to be more expensive than that one man. Or is there some other black in the lentil?