After over half a decade with Jagran Group as the President and after a 16-year stint with MBL (Radio City), the company she was instrumental in translating into a leader in the FM radio industry and then taking it public in 2016, Apurva Purohit steps down. In the public market, MBL is the most valuable FM player today.
For Apurva’s valuable contribution in creating a management team that is capable of dealing with situations like Covid in particular, and making the organization self-dependent and self-sufficient, the Board placed on record its appreciation. The Board accepted her intent to step down from 1.7.2021, respecting her decision and informed the stock exchanges accordingly.
“Apurva’s key strengths lie in her ability to simplify complex problems, build teams and implement innovations and strategies in a focused and extremely effective fashion. Her understanding of consumer behavior and what drives change in people, and managing the tough business of media which require both right and left brain thinking and her business acumen have been invaluable to Jagran, especially in the last few difficult years. Her exit is a great loss to the Group but also to me personally since I have always looked upon her for independent high quality advice in key matters, especially those concerning corporate governance and a business view of finance. I wish her all the very best” said Mr. RK Agarwal, Group Chief Financial Officer, Jagran Prakashan Limited.
Apurva helped pivot the group in her tenure at Jagran, from a deep-rooted reliance on its traditional print businesses to focus on new age emerging businesses. The strategies adopted under her tutelage and her emphasis on excellence in implementation have helped create strong and resilient verticals in radio, print, outdoor and digital with the ability to power through difficult economic scenarios. Under her people-oriented leadership and focus on building a great culture, one of her portfolio companies, Radio City has been consecutively featured in the Great Place To Work survey for 7 years in India and amongst the Best Places to Work in Asia (2019, 2020) and has become a case study on building high impact cultures which have a direct correlation on profitability.
“I have spent 32 years in media and have had the good fortune to work on every possible media platform, from the early days of setting up Lodestar, one of India’s finest media houses, to working in television, radio, print and digital. These three decades have given me incredible opportunities to build and scale up a diverse set of businesses – from fledgling ones like Radio City, to new ventures like Times TV and supervising turnarounds in mature organizations like Zee TV. I will continue to use these experiences to mentor and guide CEOs and entrepreneurs to build valuable businesses, a role I have been doing for the past few years at Jagran and the other companies I am associated with. I have been reflecting recently, especially in this period of crisis, that it is the job of each one of us who has the ability and the resources to drive change, to worry about the economic situation around us and do everything in our power to create positive impact. This phase of my journey is about creating and funding businesses which work towards generating employment where it is needed, and at scale, a sorely needed initiative given the significant number of people who have been rendered jobless in the past year.” said Ms. Apurva Purohit.
Advocating gender diversity, what ails it, and what organizations and leaders can do to improve this critical imperative, Apurva has been a leading voice in the Indian business landscape. Aiming to empower women and encourage them to achieve their full potential, she has authored two national bestselling books. She has been named as one of the Most Powerful Women in Business as per the India Today Group (2016, 2018, 2019) and Fortune India (2018, 2019, 2020) and has won multiple business awards over the years. She was amongst LinkedIn’s Top Voices and YourStory’s Top 10 digital Influencers of 2020.
