In an interesting move Omar Qureshi – Bollywood & Media Expert and has joined the Viiking Media & Entertainment Group as “Chief Creative Officer & Business Head”.
Viiking is an Entertainment and Media conglomerate with business entrepreneur, filmmaker, actor, Sachiin J Joshi as its Chairman. It is part of the Viiking Group, that has business interests in Film Production, Beverages (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), Spas & Health Products, Gymnasiums, Spring & Mineral water, tissues, Sports (he has a huge shareholding in the star cricket enterprise - CCL apart from owning the team ‘Telugu Warriors’); has recently forayed into luxury hotels by bringing down the famed Planet Hollywood hotel to Goa luxe. Viiking is also the producer of several big ticket films like the Aishwarya Rai – Bachchan starrer ‘Jazbaa’ and Ram Gopal Verma’s next, ‘The Secret’ among others.
With Omar Qureshi coming on board as CCO, the Group now enters the sizzling hot Digital Media and Creative Content market. For TV, web, mobile and the big screen of movie production; including marketing, promotions and distribution. As well as a focus on music verticals.
Omar Qureshi brings with himself a humongous experience across numerous media platforms- in print (as Editor of the famed ‘Stardust’ magazine); web, mobile and on-ground – launching a glut of products with Indiatimes.com of the Times Group – as Entertainment Editor for the Group. Making Indiatimes a highly valued company with his contributions. His initiations with Aamir Khan’s ‘Lagaan’ spun off many businesses for Times Internet Ltd. And helped in it becoming India’s fastest ‘Superbrand’.
In 2008 he was asked by the Times Group, to head zoom TV as Editor-in-Chief. Omar’s Review show on zoom was also one of India’s most watched shows.
Commenting on Omar’s entry Sachiin Joshi, Chairman– Viiking Ventures and Viiking Media and Entertainment – “This is the most fabulous handshake to happen in the business of Media and Entertainment in a long time and will remains so for a long time. We, as a Group, are expanding in the areas of Movies, Movie content, short and long form content for digital. Movie Production, Marketing and Promotions across all our properties. And who better than Omar – with his immense experience in all these zones – to spearhead these areas. He is a household name with Bollywood and a known face with TV, Media and even the audiences. His experience and expertise shall only add greater value to Viiking as a Company. We intend not only to become the biggest players in the Digital Content space out of India, we will also have the in-house expertise to select and make the best possible content for Movies and the music space, that seem to be suffering from dearth of enough creativity. Omar is a master of that territory and we are very excited.”
Speaking about his new professional outing Omar says – “When smart business meets smart content the result is a spark that can set benchmarks and blaze new trails. With the kind of Group support and resources at the disposal of The Viiking Group, the ventures we are looking at shall be The Place to visit, for sampling any kind of content across genres. With a focused eye on Bollywood and Entertainment, we shall also foray into other genres. And with niche TV viewing going through asphyxiation by the larger GECs, and with content suffering from scarcity of originality, we hope to create shark tanks of expert teams, the best of breed in their domains, who will create businesses that will become a landing page for most consumers. Also, with the Group’s interest in Bollywood and Tollywood movies, also looking internationally, I see a beautiful synergy and an exciting new zone that shall be the mother of all Digital Content, hopefully, sooner than we think. With the kind of vision, 70mm foresight and drive that Sachiin Joshi has, this seems immensely doable.”
