Turner Broadcasting System Asia Pacific, Inc. (Turner) has promoted Eslinda Hamzah as Senior Vice-President for CNN Broadcast and Commercial Sales and Marketing and Affiliate Relations, Asia Pacific. This expansion of Hamzah’s current responsibilities will allow added focus on the hotel, in-flight and travel sector, upholding CNN’s existing leadership position. She will continue to be responsible for the management of CNN’s broadcast affiliate relations and sales of the network’s broadcast services, which include CNN’s breaking news coverage and feature programming to broadcasters across the Asia Pacific region.

British Telecom (BT) has appointed Sudhir Narang as Managing Director for its India operations. Narang’s appointment is effective from December 20, 2007. As Managing Director, Narang would lead BT Global Services’ strategy, growing BT’s presence and spearheading services in India. He will be reporting to Allen Ma, President, BT Asia Pacific. Narang has over 20 years’ experience in the Indian IT sector. Beginning his career at HCL Ltd, Narang took up the position of General Manager at HCL Comnet, the networking line of business for HCL. In 1998, he moved on to Cisco, where he was subsequently appointed Senior VP, India and SAARC, and most recently held the position of CEO at Tulip IT Services.

Gurneesh Khurana is joining General Motors as General Manager India from December 21, 2007. He will be reporting to Ankush Arora, Vice President – Sales, Marketing and After Sales, General Motors India. Khurana’s last stint was with Star News where he spent a year as Regional Manager, Ad Sales. Khurana has also worked with DNA for one and a half years, and Hindustan Times for four and a half years as Deputy General Manager. He began his career with Xerox India, where he spent eight years. Khurana has 14 years’ experience.

Alok Dutta has been appointed as CEO of SIXT India, a leading car rental, leasing and fleet management services provider of the Sona Group. Prior to this, Dutta was with the Eicher Group for 25 years, where he was responsible for various functional areas like procurement and management of materials, manufacturing, engineering, marketing and group finance. His last assignment with Eicher Group was as MD of Eicher International, the Group’s export arm. Besides the Eicher Group, Dutta has also worked with the Baxy Group, one of the leading manufacturers and exporters of auto components. The Group had acquired a company in Europe called Vege for remanufacturing engines in which Dutta was actively involved and turned around the company within a year.

Manoj Sharma has joined MaXposure Group as Senior Sales and Marketing Manager for North India. His last stint was with Dainik Bhakar as Deputy Manager. He was with the Group for three years. Sharma has also worked with Sepia Advertising as Media Manager for seven months. He was earlier with Dainik Jagran as Senior Executive for two years. Sharma began his career with Hindustan Times in the circulation and events departments, where he spent one year.

Manoj Padmanadhan has joined ZEE’s new venture, Digital Media Convergence Ltd (DMCL), as Vice-President, Marketing. DMCL is an Essel Group venture that has forayed into the emerging business opportunities of digital entertainment. The products would include portals, content that can be viewed on mobile devices and the Internet. Prior to this appointment, Padmanadhan was associated with Tata VSNL as DGM.