Viveck Goenka of Indian Express elected new PTI Chairman

Viveck Goenka, Chairman and Managing Director of the Express Group, and N Ravi, former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu daily, were on Thursday unanimously elected Chairman and Vice Chairman, respectively, of Press Trust of India, the country’s largest news agency.

Goenka, 60, succeeds Riyad Mathew, who is Senior Assistant Editor and a member of the Manorama management.

Ravi, 69, succeeds Goenka as Vice Chairman.

The election took place at a meeting of the Board of Directors following the Company’s 69th Annual General Meeting here on Thursday.

Besides Goenka, Ravi and Mathew, members of the PTI Board are Mahendra Mohan Gupta (Dainik Jagran), KN Shanth Kumar (Deccan Herald), Vineet Jain (Times of India), Aveek Kumar Sarkar (Anand Bazar Patrika), MP Veerendra Kumar (Mathrubhumi), R Lakshmipathy (Dinamalar), Vijay Kumar Chopra (The Hind Samachar Ltd), Rajiv Verma (Hindustan Times), Hormusji N Cama (Bombay Samachar), Justice RC Lahoti, Prof Deepak Nayyar, Shyam Saran and JF Pochkhanawalla.

Addressing shareholders during the Annual General Meeting, outgoing Chairman Mathew noted that the Company posted a revenue of Rs 172.76 crore during 2016-17 as against Rs.166.36 crore in the preceding year, an increase of Rs. 6.4 crore.

“PTI once again proved to be the pre-eminent news service in India with its fact-based and balanced reportage, fulfilling the news cooperative’s core commitment to its diverse subscribers,” Mathew said.

The PTI Board took a major decision last year to split the roles of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Editor-in-Chief (EIC), which were traditionally held by one person, to meet growing challenges resulting from the changing media landscape.

The editorial team is now led by a new Editor-in-Chief, Vijay Joshi, a veteran journalist with more than three decades’ experience in the profession. The CEO is Venky Venkatesh, who also has more than three decades’ experience in sales, marketing, corporate affairs and media.

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