Headline

Founder’s office associate, figuring things out at the intersection of culture, content and commerce 📷

About

I'm a media professional operating at the intersection of culture, content, and commerce. My career began in format licensing and content syndication at Alliance Media, where I developed a foundational understanding of how content moves through the business world. That grounding led me into advertising, where I channeled my creative instincts toward solving complex communication challenges for a diverse brand portfolio. Today, I work in the Founder's Office of Amusement Park Entertainment and Hotcult alongside serial entrepreneur Gautam Reddy, leading a dual mandate of driving content strategy for the studio business while ensuring marketing efforts resonate authentically for South India. On the professional front, I've contributed to building out new revenue pipelines, implementing a central CRM, and closing deals with marquee clients across media and entertainment. Always happy to connect over coffee, dogs, or a good whodunit. Reach me at vaibhawkumar@icloud.com

Location

Mumbai

AI stack

aistudio

claude code

claude

codex

n8n

notion

Work experience

Brand Solutions Head at Hotcult India, Apr 2026 - Sep 2026 · 5 mo, Mumbai, • Accelerated Promotion: Promoted to Brand Solutions Head within 12 months of joining— a lateral move that typically takes 24–36 months. • Revenue & Growth: Own end-to-end revenue targets across quarterly and annual cycles, driving new business acquisition, account mining, and cross-selling across content, digital, influencer, and on-ground formats. Secured HUL Red Label Dust Tea's brand mandate at the start of FY2026-27, writing and directing a rural market campaign for the Telangana region. • Stakeholder Management: Serve as primary strategic partner for senior client stakeholders, translating brand briefs into insight-led, culturally resonant campaign strategies across formats. • Leadership: Built and mentored a cross-functional team of brand solution managers, planners, and creatives — driving clarity of ownership and a high-performance team culture. The team is currently the agency's highest-performing team by revenue and pitch conversion (~40%).

Founder's Office - Brand Partnerships at Hotcult India, Mar 2025 - Apr 2026 · 1 yr 2 mos, • Business Operations & Process Improvement: Designed and implemented Pitch Governance, Attribution Frameworks and Inter-Departmental Workflows. This standardized output quality across teams and resolved decision-making bottlenecks. These interventions reduced project turnaround times by 25% and established quality standards that drove a 60% pitch win rate for owned accounts. • Corporate Strategy & Financial Planning: Spearheaded budget forecasting, Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), and the creation of investor decks for fundraising rounds, led by Finance. Conducted deep-dive research on category positioning and pricing strategy to optimize EBITDA for core services business model. • Organizational Development & RevOps: Established capacity planning models for scale and verticalized the revenue pipeline via a new CRM implementation. Supported hiring efforts to close 3 critical senior leadership positions, ensuring the team structure aligned with long-term business goals. • Operational Efficiency & Cost Optimization: Partnered with finance to identify operational leaks; executed cost-reduction strategies saving ~$15,000 annually. Streamlined vendor ecosystems by defining clear KRAs and success metrics. • Key Account Strategy & Retention: Owned high-level management of marquee accounts (Airtel, Vodafone Idea, HUL brands: Bru, 3 Roses, Reliance Consumer Products Limited). Served as the primary escalation point for key stakeholders to ensure retention, while overseeing efforts for revenue mining from existing clients.

Sales and Distribution Agent at Matter Entertainment, Jan 2024 - Jan 2025 · 1 yr 1 mo, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, • Content Syndication: Secured multi-platform distribution deals (Viacom, Roku, Air India) for the documentary Ram Janmabhoomi, propelling it to become India's most-streamed documentary of 2024 (Ormax Media). • Project Packaging and Pre-sales: Negotiated strategic pre-sales for the marquee non-fiction IP Devkhel, co-developed by Amish Tripathi (The Shiva Trilogy, Ram Chandra Series) and Gurmeet Singh (Mirzapur, Inside Edge). • International Market Expansion: Developed the Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy for MIPCOM 2024, resulting in a high-value collaboration between ZDF Studios and Koel Puri. • New Business Initiatives: Partnered with Yoshimoto Kogyo to leverage a $100M fund for Japanese content expansion across film series and live events. • Agenting: Managed the end-to-end deal lifecycle from optioning literary rights (Somnath Cipher) to comprehensive project packaging. Oversaw high-level stakeholder management and pitching to ensure commercially viable development pipelines.

Founder and CEO at No Fatigue Films, Jan 2023 - Jan 2024 · 1 yr 1 mo, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, • 0 → 1 Venture Building: Bootstrapped the production house to execute 15+ commercial projects within the first year. Secured and managed contracts for key brands including Amazon Prime, Roche Pharma, Swisse, The Brooklyn Creamery, Plantaway Foods and Deciwood (Shark Tank Season 2). • P&L Ownership: Managed the full P&L, overseeing financial planning, budgeting, and resource allocation. • Financial Strategy: Optimized production workflows and costs to maximize gross margins across advertisements and social impact documentaries. • Cross-Functional Leadership: Built and led a multi-disciplinary team across creative, sales, and operations. • Project Governance: Established training and operational workflows while directing complex filming schedules to ensure on-time project delivery.

Creative Associate at Alliance Media & Entertainment Pvt Ltd, Dec 2021 - Nov 2022 · 1 yr, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, • Content Acquisition and Licensing: Coordinated the acquisition and licensing of 23 films for the Indian subcontinent with platforms like Amazon Prime Video and MUBI (SVOD, TVOD, PVD). • Commercial Strategy & Growth: Revitalized business during a critical period to achieve 16% QoQ post-pandemic growth. Negotiated competitive deals across APAC and Europe, saving up to $250k (INR 2 Cr), while frontending conversations with senior level leadership in companies like Banijay Rights, BBC, All3Media, Gaumont, StudioCanal, Pathe, Newen Connect, Le Pacte, Wild Bunch, MK2. • Stakeholder Management: Nurtured relationships with international artists and partners to foster future collaborations. Served on the executive committee to guide the development and production of in-house films and TV projects. • Creative Strategy and Ops: Streamlined operations by generating detailed project lifecycle reports and ensuring full compliance with copyright regulations and legal requirements. Oversaw broader content strategy, including securing adaptation rights for films, books, TV shows, and plays.

Teaching Assistant at Ashoka University, Jun 2021 - Aug 2021 · 3 mos, • Led curriculum development for an interdisciplinary course titled "The Right to Water" under the guidance of Prof. Mitul Baruah. • Designed a course outline with eight distinct lectures covering law, society, politics, ethics, and environmental studies from a viewpoint of contemporary anthropology. • Independently conducted two lectures during the semester and mentored fifteen students in course instruction, helping them to think critically through the course material.

Education

Bachelor of Arts (Hons.), Sociology and Anthropology, Ashoka University

High School, Business/Commerce, General, Delhi Public School - R. K. Puram