Bodhisatva Ganguli has been appointed as executive editor of The Economic Times, the country’s largest business daily. This follows the resignation of its editorial director Rahul Joshi last week to join Reliance Industries-controlled media company Network18 Media & Investments Ltd as CEO News which was first reported by VCCircle.
The company has also elevated Saubhik Chakrabarti and Santosh Menon as deputy executive editors. Resident editor of the newspaper's Delhi edition, Javed Sayed has become assistant executive editor as part of the shuffle.
Raj Jain, CEO of Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL), confirmed this development to VCCircle. "Yes, we have made an internal announcement," he replied to a mail seeking confirmation of the changes in ET editorial leadership. BCCL is the privately held holding company of the media house that goes as Times Group and houses top publications The Times of India and The Economic Times besides various print, broadcast and digital media properties.
Ganguli, who has been with ET for more than 15 years, has been serving as deputy executive editor under Joshi. He had previously held positions such as resident editor for Mumbai edition, corporate editor (Mumbai) and edit page editor.
Chakrabarti, one of the rare top leadership lateral hires made by the newspaper around four years ago, was heading the weekend magazine section Sunday ET, an edition he totally restructured after taking over. He was with Indian Express Group prior to that.
As deputy executive editor he will be in charge of views, features, politics, Sunday ET and other supplements such as ET Wealth and ET Panache. The group's co-promoter and vice chairman Samir Jain has made it clear in an internal office memo that Chakrabarti will report to Ganguli except for edit page and ET Panache.
All resident editors of ET will report to the other deputy executive editor Santosh Menon. Menon, who joined the media house from Reuters in 2008, was initially part of a rewriting team and later took on a larger role. He will continue to head special projects, recruitment and training in ET and will report to Ganguli.
Assistant executive editor Sayed, who rejoined the media publication firm in 2004 after a four-year stint with industry body CII, was initially heading the research team. Two years later he became corporate editor in Delhi and was later in 2009 elevated as the resident editor.
He will be in charge of ET online and a dozen of its micro-sites. He also has the responsibility of integrating print and online editions. Sayed will report to Menon for print edition. ET online editor will now report to Sayed and ET online business head, who is a non-editorial executive.
Associate editors Nabeel Mohideen, who heads desk operations nationally, and Rakesh Bedi, who looks after page one and special projects, will report to Ganguli.
The changes have been made with immediate effect.