MEDIA company KAANS PRODUCTION AND ENTERTAINMENT STUDIO founded by Anita Singh and has appointed Dr.Kaushik Izardar as a Creative Producer for of the company and he will be responsible for the overall creative and business dimension of the company.
Dr. Kaushik Izardar’s career has spanned across the leading names and best companies in electronic media and pharmaceuticals. He is a versatile and dynamic person with rich experience in multiple industries and a proven track record that boasts of brand building, sales and marketing, customer relationship, supply chain management and operation excellence. With around two decades of perseverance, passion and promising talent at the help, Dr. Kaushik Izardar is not your usual guy who was born with it, on the contrary, he is the unheard leader who prefers to stay behind the scenes and run the show for some of the best brands in the country today.
We are in conversation with the man himself, as we take him along on a nostalgic journey to his past as well as a vision into his future plans.
Q. Can you walk us through your educational background?
A. Sure! I hold a Bachelors of Science in Zoology from Visva Bharti University post which I pursued my Masters in International Business (MIB). It is during my post-graduation program, I was fascinated by the concepts of business and management which eventually led me to pursue a Masters Diploma in Business Administration. I have always been an academically bright fellow and completed both my graduation and post-graduation degrees in 1st division.
Q. Why did you go into the research field and completed your Ph.D. in Management?
A. Honestly, my curiosity and interest in Business Management and its various principles and applications drove me to dive deeper into the field with an advance program in Strategic Management from IIM Calcutta as well as a Diploma in Business Management from.One thing led to another and I decided to further my research and knowledge and secure a Ph.D. in Management, under my guide Dr. Sinha (Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad). Luckily for me, all these steps towards education and knowledge about business management and strategy planning has helped me tremendously professionally as well as personally.
Q. What was the response of your family?
A. They have always been supportive in my journey and have tremendously inspired and pushed me to reach the maximum. In hindsight, if it wasn’t for their endless support and faith in me, I would not have made it this far in life! They are the integral pillars on which my success continues to thrive.
Q. Tell us some of the brands you have worked with in the past.
A. My professional journey started with Fulford India Limited, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., USA which operates in various therapeutic areas in human health after a short stint in RPG Paging. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine a better start for my professional career as I got amazing opportunities for establishing brands and devising operational strategies to meet targets and make profits. Working with Fulford India Limited also allowed me the freedom to design a brand strategy as well as bring a cultural change across the organization. It paid off in the end, as I was nominated with the highly coveted ‘Man of the Year’ every year and was rewarded with the ‘Excellent Performance’ award for delivering highest growth ever in the cardiology segment.
Q. After your first stint at Delhi, you moved to Mumbai. Was this a planned career move or a leap of faith?
A. It was due to relentless hunger to learn new things and apply my knowledge for personal and professional growth. Back in the late 90s when the Indian media scene was ripe with growth opportunities and numerous possibilities, I decided to take a look at the ‘Entertainment’ domain and apply my knowledge to work in the mainstream media and entertainment news channels. Courage favours the brave and I got rewarded with an exciting role with a production house as an ‘Assistant Director’. After managing programming, production and delivery for their shows, I continued to imbibe more responsibilities by working in distinctive shows and channels of the country. (NDTV Imagine, Sony-SAB TV and Zee Next).
I believe in taking calculated risks and soon ventured into leading the production and post-production works with leading production houses in Mumbai.
Q. What do you think was your expertise around this professional phase?
A. I was fully involved in a managerial role and by that time I had extensive exposure across a gamut of avenues including commercial, business development, sales and marketing, brand building, product positioning and corporate communications. It was then in 2008 when I accepted the role of Commercial and Operational Content – Manager with INX Media Pvt. Ltd and was entrusted with the huge responsibility of accomplishing all the commercial deals on all projects of 9X’s channel network (9X, 9XM and News X).
Post demonstrating my qualities of ownership, communication and management, I moved to the greener role of handling the entire commercial function for 17 channels for ZEE Entertainment in Mumbai. It was a valuable career experience working with the team and handling the end-to-end commercial deals for both regional and international channels.
Honestly, I have never looked back since then and that 5 year period was really a pivoting point in my career. I had proven my competence in handling a diverse range of roles in the organization, anything ranging from handling shoot related commercials for every project to exceeding client expectations with our quality and consistency.
I was associated with Viacom 18 as Vice President – Commercial for contracts and negotiations with both internal and external customers as well as managed the exclusive contracts, legal documents and studio deals throughout their network. It was a humbling experience as I worked with some of the most creative and seasoned brains of the country for a mutual vision. Plus, I got a shot at improving my financial and budgetary knowledge as well! As the ‘Go To’ person for most operations, I was closely working in tandem with the management and divisions in the organization. Then I moved to Global one and subsequently cofounded entertainment streaming app- EORTV
Q. Could you tell us some of the shows and projects where you played a role in launching and developing?
A. While I was engaging with various business heads and aligning the objectives of our organization to drive interaction and engagement, I got a hands-on experience on some of the most creative and unique telly concept. Whether reality, fiction, non-fiction or events, I had the distinction of delivering successful projects closures commercially with shows like – Dance India Dance and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa ,MTV Roadies, MTV Splitsvilla, Kaisi Yeh Yaariaan, Jhansi Ki Rani, amongst many others. I feel every experience has added value to my professional journey and contributed immensely to my growth. Plus, I got to learn a great deal about audiences, creativity and trends in the media and entertainment industry.Lastly working on your own platform , nurturing it from birth gave us tremendous experience in terms of knowledge . Isn’t it intriguing to see how content streaming platforms curate and stream content for every user? Not only do they recommend the top trending content, but they also show content that appeals to their subscribers at an individual level. But, how do they serve millions of users concurrently? How do they pop up personalized recommendations that cater to each individual’s taste? Some of these questions we solved and went ahead to create our own platform.
Q. Your journey has been an inspiring ride. What are your plans ahead, Dr. Izardar?
A. Thank you! So far we have completed three web series , two digital films and a Kannada Film . We have just signed a Bollywood director for a feature film . Details shall be available shortly .
