Partho Dasgupta, managing director and chief executive officer, Future Media, and Vishakha Singh, director, marcom and strategy, Future Media, put in their papers yesterday morning. They will now begin their own venture, called Aurora Comms.
Dasgupta headed Future Media since its inception in November 2006; Singh joined the board later. Dasgupta and Singh have also worked together in Times Now.
Sing divulged that, “We have been mulling over doing something on our own for some time now.” Commenting on the new venture, she said, “All I can say is that the company will deal in media and advertising.” On the choice of name, she remarked, “Aurora stands for dawn or daybreak. In our case, it stands for the emergence of new media concepts.”
Dasgupta argued the contention that this is not a good time to start a new venture, “In one way, this is a very good time to start. They say it’s a great time to invest in the stock market when it is low. Similarly, it’s a great time for us to invest in infrastructure so that when the markets look up, we’re ready.”
Singh added, “Future Media was doing pretty well, too. We are also in talks with venture capitalists (VCs) for funding for the company.”
Dasgupta was part of the Times Group for almost eight years and played a major role in managing the brand operations of The Economic Times and the business of Times Multimedia. He started the ET Intelligence Group, the research arm of The Economic Times. He was also involved in conceptualising the news channel and the business of Times Global Broadcasting Co. Dasgupta has also worked with companies such as CRISIL and Tetra Pak.
Singh has worked briefly with CNBC-TV18.