Google India to be led by former Disney India head Sanjay Gupta

Months after Rajan Anandan, Google's former India head quit the company, Google has appointed a new face to lead its India operations. Sanjay Gupta is Google India's new country manager, VP of sales and operations and successor to Anandan, who quit the company in April to focus full-time on investing in young technology startups. Gupta is stepping down from his role at Star and Disney India where he served as the managing director.

"I am delighted to take on the challenge of leading and shaping Google’s charter in India. It is an exciting opportunity to leverage the power of technology to solve some of India’s unique challenges and make the Internet an engine of economic growth for people and communities. I am happy to join the passionate teams across Google and look forward to contributing to India’s digital journey as it becomes an innovation hub for the world."

Who is Sanjay Gupta?

Gupta's career spans nearly 30 years. He worked at Star and Disney India as managing director where he played his role in making a shift from Star's traditional television content to digital play in the form of Hotstar. Gupta is known for Hotar's expansion into Sports vertical by acquiring marquee cricketing properties and launch of the kabaddi and football leagues: Pro Kabaddi League and Indian Super League.

He also served at Hindustan Unilever and led marketing for Oral and Home care. Having served as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Bharti Airtel, Gupta is known to have driven numerous sales and marketing initiatives. Gupta studied post-graduation from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kolkata and engineering from Delhi College of Engineering.

The successor to Rajan Anandan

The appointment of Sanjay Gupta comes six months after Rajan Anandan stepped down after spending over 8 years at the company. Anandan was the Vice President for India and SEA. Anandan is now moving on to focus full-time on investing in young technology startups as serving as managing director at Sequoia Capital India.

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