K N Shanth Kumar of The Printers (Mysore), which publishes the English daily Deccan Herald, Kannada language daily Prajavani, and Sudha and Mayura newspapers has been elected chairman of the Press Trust of India’s (PTI) Board of Directors for a one-year term.
Shanth Kumar replaces Aveek Sarkar – vice chairman and editor emeritus of ABP Group – who was chairman for two consecutive terms. PTI is the country’s largest and oldest private news agency headquartered in Delhi.
Praveen Someshwar, chief executive officer of HT Media, has been elected as the vice-chairman. They were elected at a meeting of PTI’s Board of Directors following their Annual General Meeting in New Delhi.
“It is a privilege to be at the helm of PTI at a time when it is going through an exciting transformation, particularly after it recently launched the video service,” PTI quoted Shanth Kumar as saying.
Shanth Kumar, 62, was earlier chairman of the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), a member of the Executive Committee of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) for more than 20 years. He was previously PTI chairman in 2013-2014.
“PTI is fortunate to have someone of Shanth Kumar’s caliber at the helm. His understanding of the legacy newspaper business and the new-age digital news ecosystem will be of immense benefit to the news agency,” said Vijay Joshi, PTI’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief.
Before joining Hindustan Times, Someshwar led PepsiCo’s business in the food and beverage sector across Asia.
Besides Shanth Kumar, Someshwar, and Sarkar, the 16-member PTI Board includes Vijay Kumar Chopra of Punjab Kesari, Vineet Jain of The Times of India, N. Ravi of The Hindu, Viveck Goenka of The Express Group, Mahendra Mohan Gupta of Dainik Jagran, Riyad Mathew of Malayala Manorama, M.V. Shreyams Kumar of Mathrubhumi, L. Adimoolam of Dinamalar, Hormusji N. Cama of Bombay Samachar, economist Deepak Nayyar, former foreign secretary and NSA Shivshankar Menon, former chairman of Business Standard TN Ninan and former executive director of Tata Sons R. Gopalakrishnan.
