Endemol Shine Alum Deepak Dhar to Lead Banijay Asia

Deepak Dhar, former managing director of Endemol Shine India, has entered into a 50-50 joint venture with Banijay Group to expand the company’s presence in India and Southeast Asia.

Dhar will launch and oversee the group’s operations in India and Southeast Asia as founder and CEO of the newly created Banijay Asia. He will lead business, content strategies, partnerships and alliances with the region, mainly focusing on India. Under the direction of Dhar, Banijay Asia will produce scripted and non-scripted content across various genres, including digital and films for India and Southeast Asia.

Marco Bassetti, the CEO of Banijay Group, commented: “Banijay Asia has incredible potential to deliver growth to our group and I am delighted to welcome Deepak into the Banijay family. He has an extraordinary creative talent coupled with clear-cut business insight and I very much look forward to working with him again.”

Dhar said: “Creating innovative and engaging content has been a passion for me and I am always on a lookout for challenging opportunities. After my last role at Endemol, I was looking for an opportunity that could satiate my passion, while at the same time, have the potential to scale at multiple levels. This partnership with Banijay Group matches perfectly to what I was seeking.  Creating a strong foundation in Southeast Asia is the next crucial step for them and I am excited to be helming this move.”

Peter Langenberg, the COO of Banijay Group, noted: “This is an extremely significant partnership for us as we continue to build our presence in India and Southeast Asia, one of the most dynamic and burgeoning regions in the world. We are very excited about the wide-ranging opportunities Deepak’s experience and expertise will bring to the group.”

Dhar added: “At Banijay, we aim to create content across fiction, non-fiction, digital programming as well as films. We will work closely with the group’s central team to deliver our concepts to Banijay companies around the world for local production and, at the same time, deliver their ideas to Asian platforms.”