Intro: In the “Women in Streaming” series of articles, we talk to incredible women who have contributed a lot to the growth of the video streaming industry and share their stories. In this installment, we talk to Khushboo Yadav, CEO, Jio Entertainment Services, Board Member at JioSaavn.
Khushboo Yadav hails from an Army background wherein she studied at twelve different schools across India but calls Delhi home given her ancestral background and her undergraduate education in Economics (Hons.) from Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University. She pursued her MBA from SP Jain School of Global Management across Singapore and Dubai and has led Media and Technology businesses across many great organisations like Google, Nokia, Apple, and Jio globally. Khushboo joined Jio Platforms Limited in June’21 and currently spearheads Jio Entertainment Services as the CEO and the Board Member of JioSaavn. She was awarded the “Champions of Change” award by the Governor of Karnataka for her work in the field of media and technology in 2023. Khushboo is passionate about work and always has a north star for the businesses at hand.
Thank you, Khushboo, for agreeing to sit down with us for this interview. It is a pleasure to talk to you and hear about your experiences.
Q) Please tell our audience a little bit about your background, how you got started in the media and technology industry; and your journey so far.
My passion for the media/technology business led me to make choices in the early stages of my career, leading me to where I am today. I have always believed that entertainment is essential to all individuals, whether it’s to unwind, for leisure, to boost productivity, or for reasons very personal to individuals and technology is a great enabler for the widespread distribution/consumption of entertainment content. The intersection of media and technology is a sweet spot for me since it fuels my passion and am able to contribute effectively towards the businesses that I am a part of.
Since starting my career with Google in India in 2007, I have been a digital native. Like most people, I caught the B-School bug and pursued my MBA in Marketing from SP Jain School of Global Management, based out of Singapore and Dubai in 2010.
I joined Nokia as the Marketing Manager in Dubai for the Middle East and African markets and worked on the portfolio of Nokia Symbian and Nokia Lumia devices across the region. Since I always had a keen interest in the Services/Entertainment side of the business, I opted for a global role to run Marketing/Consumer Engagement for Nokia Music, Nokia Reading, and Nokia TV based out of London, when the business was looking to expand their offering across the UK/EU and US markets.
Apple has been an organisation that I always wanted to work for and it was like a dream come true when they contacted me for the role of a Regional Marketing Head for the iTunes/Apple Services business for emerging markets based in Dubai back in 2013. We were the founding team for the Apple Services business across India, the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa, and it was an exciting role to be a part of a start-up like set-up within an MNC like Apple.
Soon after the CEO’s (Tim Cook) first visit to India in May 2016 (which I was a part of), I was offered the opportunity to set up the Apple Services Business Unit in India in 2016 and so after leading marketing efforts for about three years, I relocated to Gurgaon, to help do so. We hired and built a local team across Delhi and Mumbai to service the Indian market better. In the first half of 2019, I relocated back to Dubai with Apple to set up and run Regional Business Development for the Apple Services business across emerging markets, focusing strongly on monetisation through a subscription lens. We focused on partnerships across sectors like telcos, financial services, retail, airlines, automotive, etc.
In June 2021, I was approached with an exciting opportunity to move to Mumbai and work with Reliance Jio. Having interacted with the leadership team at Jio as partners during my Apple India stint, I had closely observed Jio revolutionizing content consumption and the content industry in India. So, this was an excellent opportunity for me to be a part of the growing business here at Jio and in India.
After joining Jio, I worked closely with the leadership team to set up a team called Jio Entertainment Services, focusing on building a sustainable P&L for the entertainment businesses run by Jio. India is one of the hottest content beds for entertainment, and Jio offers a robust ecosystem for consumers and businesses. It’s been almost three years at Jio, and the journey has been exciting, with new learnings and opportunities every day, which I thrive on.
Q) Can you give us an overview of your role as the CEO of Jio Entertainment Services?
I work with a diverse team of super-talented and passionate team members’ and oversee the business P&L for JioTV and JioTV+ (Mobile and CTV) and offer advisory support to JioSaavn on an ongoing basis. The team manages everything from strategy, product, technology, editorial/programming, content licensing, content ops, content partnerships, marketing, alliances, and monetisation. I do my best to ensure that the consumer value proposition of our services/products is compelling, the business P&L is viable, business partners are satisfied and the team has a strategy and steady focus on business goals/objectives and everyone works in collaboration to achieve the same.
Q) Can you tell our audience how JioTV and JioTV+ have evolved over the years?
Given the latest industry trends, content consumption has evolved over the years due to many reasons. Consumers are now enjoying watching content across both small and large screens at their convenience/comfort based on their daily schedule/preferences and therefore, both JioTV (mobile) and JioTV+ (connected TV) are highly relevant content destinations in today’s day and age.
JioTV is home to over 1000 TV channels from 200+ broadcasters (linear viewing) offering an exhaustive variety of content genres to our customers in 16 languages at no cost (AVOD). JioTV also serves as a super app for entertainment offering Linear TV, Catch Up, Movies, Sports, Music (JioSaavn), News (JioNews), Games (JioGames), and more.
We also launched ‘JioTV Premium’ (SVOD) last year offering wherein we offer a unique entertainment bundle of 13 premium OTT apps at an affordable price to our customers.
Our constant endeavour is to ensure that can act as a one-stop destination for all entertainment needs (domestic and global) for our customers and ensure our customers have the best product experience that helps us evolve our business strategy.
Q) In the past, entertainment was centralized through broadcast and cable channels. Now, with the rise of streaming, the media industry is more fragmented. How do you intend to attract and retain viewers in this era of selective content consumption?
Given the diverse portfolio of content/OTT platforms and content categories across the Jio entertainment ecosystem ranging from linear television, movies, music, sports, news, games, live streaming of key events, and more; we believe that our ecosystem offers enough and more variety of content to our customers to choose from.
Besides; our super app strategy for the small and big screens for JioTV/JioTV+ with both AVOD and SVOD pricing models; we aim to serve as a one-stop destination for all our customer needs. We hope to keep our customers engaged by ensuring a seamless viewing experience and continuously enriching our content offering based on customer demand/preferences.
Q) What’s one lesson your career has taught you that you think everyone should learn at some point in their life?
Dare to dream and Believe in yourself! Until you learn to believe in yourself and share your point of view/ideas with conviction; no one else will believe in you. Everyone is unique and therefore, everyone must embrace their unique self, be authentic, and trust in their own abilities to grow and succeed.
Q) Last but not least, we come to our rapid-fire section – a list of fun questions about you.
* Favorite way to relax: Listening to Music or Playing a Sport
* Favorite cuisine: Indian is all time fave staple diet followed closely by Italian
* Favorite travel destination: I am a water baby and like exploring new beach destination(s) and water sports
* Favorite sport: Favorite sport to play is Badminton and to watch is Cricket. I am also a bit fan of adventure sports like Sky Diving, Parasailing, Bungee, Scuba Diving, and more.
* One thing on your bucket list: I love traveling and have quite a few destinations across Europe and Latin America that I would like to explore. I also have a bucket list of music concerts/festivals that I would like to attend over the next few years
* Hidden talent: I like the idea of keeping a few hidden talents; hidden 🙂
Thank you, Khushboo, for this wonderful interview, and we wish you all the best.
Abhi Rao
Abhi is the Managing Director and Head of Marketing for OTTVerse. She holds an MBA from Queen’s University, Canada, and comes with more than a decade of experience as a Business Analyst working with some of the biggest banks in the US and Canada. Before joining OTTVerse, Abhi ran her educational startup focusing on content creation, sales, and marketing.
Abhi runs the day-to-day operations, marketing, and sales for OTTVerse.