K.N. Shanth Kumar of The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd was on Friday elected Chairman of the Press Trust of India's Board of Directors for a one-year term.
Mr. Shanth Kumar's election took place at a meeting of PTI's Board of Directors following their Annual General Meeting at the news agency's headquarters in New Delhi.
The Board also elected Praveen Someshwar, the Chief Executive Officer of Hindustan Times, as the Vice-Chairman. Mr. Shanth Kumar replaces Aveek Sarkar, who served as Chairman for two consecutive terms.
"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," said Mr. Shanth Kumar.
Mr. Shanth Kumar, 62, has been involved in the management of The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd in various roles since 1983. He was also 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. This is the second time that he is serving as the Chairman of the Board of PTI, the last time being 2013 to 2014.
‘Immense benefit’
"PTI is fortunate to have someone of Shanth Kumar's calibre 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.
The Printers (Mysore) Pvt. Ltd publishes English daily Deccan Herald, Kannada language daily Prajavani, Sudha and Mayura newspapers from its headquarters in Bengaluru.
Mr. Shanth Kumar has a keen interest in sports and photography. He has covered several Olympic Games since 1988 as an accredited photographer, besides several other sporting events.
Mr. Someshwar is a veteran FMCG industry executive with a career spanning nearly three decades in planning and executing strategies. Before joining Hindustan Times, he led PepsiCo's business in the food and beverage sector across Asia. Previously based in Hong Kong, he managed all PepsiCo businesses across Asia, excluding China and India.
Press Trust of India is the country’s largest and oldest private news agency. It was founded two weeks after Independence in 1947 by a group of newspapers, which also own it. The shareholders, however, receive no part of the company’s profits, which go back towards the development and modernisation of the news agency.
Besides Mr. Shanth Kumar, Mr. Someshwar and Mr. Sarkar, the 16-member PTI Board includes Vijay Kumar Chopra (Punjab Kesari), Vineet Jain (The Times of India), N. Ravi (The Hindu), Viveck Goenka (The Express Group), Mahendra Mohan Gupta (Dainik Jagran), Riyad Mathew (Malayala Manorama), M.V. Shreyams Kumar (Mathrubhumi), L. Adimoolam (Dinamalar), Hormusji N. Cama (Bombay Samachar), eminent economist Prof. Deepak Nayyar, former Foreign Secretary and NSA Shivshankar Menon, veteran journalist and former Chairman of Business Standard T.N. Ninan and former Executive Director of Tata Sons Ltd. R. Gopalakrishnan.
