Sunil Lulla, team quit ‘refocused’ indya.com

Kavita Nair and Priya Srinivasan in Mumbai

Sunil Lulla

Star TV controlled portal indya.com has undergone a major upheaval in terms of its management team as well as the organizational structure.

Indya’s management team and about 80 percent of the staff have resigned. The management team starting with CEO Sunil Lulla, CFO Alok Sethi, Head of News Arun Katiyar, Head of ad sales and Business Development Niti Chopra, Head of HR Anuradha Sharma as well as the heads of technology and operations and transactions have all put in their papers.

Explaining the move, Mr Sunil Lulla said, “the business model going forward has changed significantly, we may not go forward with transactions at all, the portal will be largely an entertainment and information focussed and this business model requires a very different organization structure, in fact the portal can now do with 20 per cent of the current staff”.

Sunil Rajasekhar from Star TV will now take over as CEO of Indya.com, he added. Mr Lulla said that he planned on pursuing an entrepreneurial role going forward though he was not willing to elaborate at this juncture.

STAR had earlier this year increased in its stake in indya.com to a majority. STAR had acquired all the shareholding of Indya’s founder Pradip Kar as well as first round investors, making it the significant majority shareholder of indya.com with a shareholding of about 98 percent in the company. Gary Walrath, executive vice president, STAR Group Limited took over as Chairman of indya.com. The consideration for this deal could not be ascertained at that stage.
STAR had earlier invested $50 million in the portal for a 33 percent stake, in the portal’s first round of funding where several prominent private equity players like Indocean Chase Capital Partners had also invested money.

By virtue of this alignment, indya.com had become the online destination for some of STAR’s programs on its channels like Kaun Banega Crorepati. STAR Plus, STAR Movies, STAR World and Channel [V] had been integrated into indya.com.

In line with this move, indya.com has recently launched a host of interactive applications and multimedia content built around some of the most popular STAR programs like FRIENDS; KBC; Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi; Kaahin Kissii Roz; Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki; Ji Mantriji; X-Files, Ally McBeal and Baywatch among others.