Karunesh Bajaj elected Chairman of ABC, Mohit Jain steps in as Deputy Chairman

New Delhi: The Audit Bureau of Circulations, the self-regulatory body that certifies the circulation figures of newspapers and magazines in India, has announced a leadership change for the term 2025–26. 

At its Annual General Meeting held in Mumbai, Karunesh Bajaj, Executive Vice-President, Marketing & Exports at ITC, was elected as the new Chairman of ABC, succeeding Riyad Mathew. 

Alongside him, Mohit Jain, COO and Board Member at Bennett, Coleman and Co. (Times Group), has been elected as the Deputy Chairman, a position previously held by Bajaj.

Speaking exclusively to BestMediaInfo after his appointment, Mohit Jain shared his immediate priorities as Deputy Chairman. “I have been on the board for the longest, and now with this taking over as vice-president, the first mission for me would be that we have to expand our reader franchise and make our content both relevant for advertisers and readers,” he said.

ABC plays a critical role in ensuring credibility and transparency in the print ecosystem by issuing bi-annual circulation certificates and standardising audit processes for member publications. Its wide membership base includes 562 dailies, 107 weeklies, 50 magazines, along with leading advertising agencies, advertisers, and news associations. The leadership change follows the Bureau’s tradition of rotating top roles annually, ensuring shared responsibility across publishers and stakeholders. 

Here’s the full list of the stakeholders:

Advertisers’ Representatives
Karunesh Bajaj, ITC: Chairman
Aniruddha Haldar, TVS Motor Company
Partho Banerjee, Maruti Suzuki India

Publishers’ Representatives
Mohit Jain, Bennett, Coleman and Co: Deputy Chairman
Dhruba Mukherjee, ABP: Hon. Secretary
Riyad Mathew, Malayala Manorama
Girish Agarwal, DB Corp
Shailesh Gupta, Jagran Prakashan
Karan Darda, Lokmat Media
Pratap G. Pawar, Sakal Papers
Adimoolam, Dinamalar

Advertising Agencies’ Representatives
Vikram Sakhuja, Madison Communications: Hon. Treasurer
Srinivasan K. Swamy, RK Swamy 
Prasanth Kumar, GroupM Media India 
Vaishali Verma, Initiative Media (India) 
Sejal Shah, Publicis Media India Group

Secretariat
Adil Kasad, Secretary General