Zee Media CRO Rajesh Sareen moves on; Manish Seth likely successor

New Delhi: Zee Media Corporation (ZMCL) Chief Revenue Officer Rajesh Sareen has called it a day, according to the company officials. 

Sareen was brought in from Network18 in September 2024, shortly after the appointment of CEO Karan Abhishek Singh, as part of a commercial reset at the broadcaster. 

Prior to that, Sareen held senior revenue mandates at Network18, including EVP & National Revenue Head for the Languages News Cluster and later Head of Revenue for the CNBC/CNN News Cluster, managing TV and digital sales across those portfolios. 

Industry sources indicate that Manish Seth is set to return to ZMCL to replace Sareen. Seth is currently Revenue Head – TV9 Digital and Business Head, Money9 at TV9 Network. 

Before moving to TV9 in 2020, Seth spent several years at Zee Media leading broadcast revenue, including a long stint as Revenue Head for Zee Media Broadcast following earlier leadership roles at the network.

Sareen’s exit comes a year after Zee Media overhauled its top deck. 

Karan Abhishek Singh, who previously led the Hindi news business at Network18, took charge as CEO in July 2024, replacing Abhay Ojha. 

Two months later, Zee Media named Sareen as CRO while also disclosing senior changes, including the exits of then-CRO Mona Jain (effective September 30, 2024) and CHRO Pooja Duggal (effective September 25, 2024), as reported by BestMediaInfo at the time.

A long-time media sales leader, Sareen’s experience spans Star India and Bennett, Coleman & Co. (Times Group) before Network18 and Zee Media. 

At BCCL, he served as National Sales Head for the Languages Business; at Star, he led ad-sales portfolios across South channels and earlier managed Hindi GEC clusters in leadership roles.