Star and Disney India has named former Google executive, Sunil Rayan, to head its video streaming service, Disney+ Hotstar in India as its President.

Uday Shankar, Chairman Disney & Star India and President, Walt Disney Company, APAC, said, “With over 20 years of experience, Sunil brings a rare mix of product engineering and commercial expertise. He has a stellar track record of scaling and growing complex businesses. Sunil is a truly global executive, bringing experiences from across the world – having scaled businesses in the US, setting up large teams in South East Asia, and working with super app players in Latin America.”

At Google, Rayan served as Managing Director of Google Cloud for Games, based out of the internet giant’s headquarter at Mountain View, California in the US. He spent the last 7.5 years at Google and also headed its Mobile App ads business till July 2018, before making the move to Google Cloud. Rayan has also had stints at McKinsey & Co., IBM, iGate Mastech, and Infosys.

Rayan will be moving from California and will be relocating to Mumbai. He will report to Shankar, who has been overseeing the digital service since December last year, when Sanjay Gupta, former Managing Director of Star and Disney India, quit to join Google India as country manager.

The position of head of Disney+ Hotstar (formerly Hotstar) has been lying vacant ever since CEO Ajit Mohan quit in later 2018 to join social networking firm Facebook as its India head. Rayan’s appointment comes as the firm is hoping to bank on his vast global experience as it pushes ahead with its mission to be the country's largest and most advanced platform for curated content.