Riyad Mathew, chief associate editor and director of the Malayala Manorama Group, has been elected as the chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) for the year 2024-2025 while Karunesh Bajaj, executive vice-president – marketing and Exports at ITC, representing advertisers on the ABC Council, was elected as the deputy chairman.
Mohit Jain, chief operating officer and board member, Bennett, Coleman and Co (Times of India Group), representing publisher members on the council, was re-elected as the secretary of the Bureau. Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO – Madison Media and OOH at Madison World, representing advertising agencies on the Council, was re-elected as the treasurer.
The other members of the bureau’s Council of Management for the year 2024-2025 are Pratap G. Pawar from Sakal Papers; Shailesh Gupta from Jagran Prakashan; Praveen Someshwar from HT Media; Dhruba Mukherjee from ABP; Karan Darda from Lokmat Media and Girish Agarwal DB Corp representing publishers.Â
The advertiser representatives are Aniruddha Haldar from TVS Motor Company; Partho Banerjee, from Maruti Suzuki India while advertising agencies representatives are Srinivasan K Swamy from RK Swamy Limited; Prasanth Kumar from Group M Media India; Vaishali Verma of Initiative Media (India); and Sejal Shah from Publicis Media India Group. Hormuzd Masani is secretary general at the secretariat.
Mathew is also a director on the board of The Press Trust of India (PTI) since August 2009. He was also the chairman of PTI for the year 2016-2017. Mathew served as a board member of the International Press Institute (IPI) in Vienna till May 2023 and now as the chairman of International Press Institute (IPI) India. Mathew was also a director on the board of directors of MRUC (Media Research Users Council) as well as board member of AIM (Association of Indian Magazines)Â
Mathew had completed his Masters in Journalism from University of Maryland and trained at The Washington Post, The Washington Times and Capital News Service.Â