---
title: "Zafar Sawant - Chief Product Officer, OTTplay in Mumbai | Tal"
description: "Meet Zafar Sawant, Built one of India’s largest OTT aggregators from scratch | Helped scale from 0-​>$10M+ ARR based in Mumbai. AI stack includes claude code, claude, and gemini."
image: "https://tal.club/meet/zafar-sawant/share-image"
---

# Zafar Sawant on Tal

## Headline

Built one of India’s largest OTT aggregators from scratch \| Helped scale from 0\-​>$10M\+ ARR

## About

Product & Technology Leader with 20\+ years of experience building and growing digital products \- both software \(deterministic\) and AI \(probabilistic\) Drove growth in mobile, video, subscriptions and AI by leading product innovation at top media organizations including The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Network18 and Mid\-Day Delivered 20\+ consumer internet \(with scale of 40M\+ DAUs\) and enterprise products that improved customer experience, process automation and business outcomes\.

## Location

Mumbai

## AI stack

claude code

claude

gemini

claudecode

ChatGPT

Gamma

## Work experience

Chief Product Officer, OTTplay at HT Media Labs, Jun 2020 \- Present · 6 yrs 3 mos

Product Lead at Network18 Media & Investments Limited, Feb 2019 \- Jun 2020 · 1 yr 5 mos, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, \- Revamped Moneybhai \- a stock simulator which allowed Moneycontrol's 22M\+ users to learn trading by experiencing markets in real time with real data using virtual currency \- Delivered \~3\.5X YoY revenue growth in video monetisation \- on platform, YouTube and Facebook \- Led Mobile App strategy for News18, Firstpost & CricketNext\. Cricketnext app featured as Editor's Choice on both Google Play & App Store

Senior Product Manager \- Mobile Apps & Monetization at Times Internet, May 2013 \- Feb 2019 · 5 yrs 10 mos, Greater Delhi Area, \- Reduced video infra costs by 50% by migrating entire video stack from 3rd\-party vendors to an in\-house platform and increased monthly video views by 2X by deploying various product interventions \(next video recommendation\) \- Increased sessions per user by 25% through personalization, deep\-linking and retention\-focused product initiatives across TOI's digital properties \- Reduced customer acquisition costs by 3% through fraud detection and attribution optimization while leading subscriptions \(TOI\+\), personalization and growth initiatives

Product Manager \- MiD\-DAY at MiD\-DAY Infomedia Ltd, Jul 2011 \- May 2013 · 1 yr 11 mos, Mumbai, \- Shipped native mobile apps and responsive site for mid\-day\.com and affiliate portals \- Led migration to Jagran tech stack to rank among Top 5 publishers in India \- Managed UI/UX lifecycles and SEO optimization, maximizing web traffic

Account Supervisor at Tribal DDB India, Jul 2010 \- Jul 2011 · 1 yr 1 mo, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, \- Supervised award\-winning work for Idea cellular, Volkswagen, McDonalds, ITC, Raymonds, Union Bank of India, etc \- Conducted competitive benchmarking, built information architecture, documentation, designed wireframes & mockups, gathered requirements, managed multiple projects & vendors, ensured quality control, etc

## Education

BScIT, Information Technology, University of Mumbai

[View the original profile](https://tal.club/meet/zafar-sawant)

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