Nita Ambani & Akash Ambani Joined Viacom18’s Board Ahead Of Merger

According to the sources, Nita Ambani, Chairperson of Reliance Foundation, and Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, have joined Viacom18’s Board ahead of its merger with the India operations of global media giant Walt Disney.

It also includes key positions of James Murdoch of Bodhi Tree Systems and Mohammed Al-Hardan of the Qatar Investment Authority. The said board restructuring happened at the time when Viacom18 merged with Disney’s Star India. Other new faces are Jyoti Deshpande from RIL and Shuva Mandal of Anagram Partners.

This comes after the merger with Star India, a company owned by Walt Disney, received regulatory clearances from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

The merger plan between Viacom18 Media and Digital18 Media, which own Reliance’s media and entertainment holdings, and Star India was authorised by the NCLT on August 30. This entails the demerger and transfer of V18’s assets into Star India, after which media operations from Viacom18 and Jio Cinema are moved into Digital18.

The joint venture will be headed by Nita Ambani, with Uday Shankar as Vice-Chairperson.