Sunil Rayan roped in as President & Head of Disney+Hotstar team

Disney+Hotstar roped in Google’s Sunil Rayan as President and Head of the streaming platform. Prior to this, Sunil Rayan was Managing Director, Google Cloud for Games.

At Google, he was Managing Director, Cloud for Games, at California. Rayan was the Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company between 2004 and 2012. Rayan has also worked at IBM, Infosysand Infosys, before joining Google.

Between December and now,  Uday Shankar, President, The Walt Disney Company, Asia Pacific, and Chairman, Star and Disney India was himself leading the Disney+ Hotstar leadership in India. Rayan will report to Uday Shankar.

On Rayan's appointment, Shankar said, “Five years ago, we set out to disrupt the way India consumed content and that mission has turned out to be totally revolutionary. Sunil is an exciting talent with global accomplishments and I am very excited to have him lead the talented Disney+ Hotstar team. At Disney + Hotstar India, we are on a mission to create the country's largest and most advanced platform for curated content, and Sunil is just the right person to drive that ambition.”

According to sources, with over 20 years of experience, Rayan brings a rare mix of product engineering and commercial expertise. He joins Disney+Hotstar from Google (Mountain View, California) where he worked for eight years, and last served as the GM and Managing Director, Cloud for Games.

K Madhavan was appointed as the new Country Manager of Disney and Star India in December 2019, after Sanjay Gupta stepped down from the position to join Google as its new Country Manager and Vice President of Sales and Operations for India last month.