Outbrain appoints Sandeep Balani to newly created role

Content discovery and marketing platform Outbrain has appointed Sandeep Balani (pictured) to a new role as head of India.Prior to taking this new position, Balani was Outbrain’s director of business development for Engage in India and focused on securing and strengthening relationships with the region’s publishers. According to the agency, Balani is a seasoned digital leader in the publishing and media industry, with more than 12 years of experience as a senior sales executive, having previously worked at Komli Media. He has been with Outbrain for over two years.The promotion of Balani to this new role is part of a renewed focus on the market, signalled also by the recent appointment of SVG Media as Outbrain’s official sales partner in India. As part of his new role, Balani will also be working closely with SVG Media to support Outbrain to continue to grow its presence and strengthen its foundation in India.Balani will also be responsible for advancing the market penetration of the entire range of Outbrain’s product portfolio, managing both the publisher and advertiser sides of the business to deliver a more holistic approach to the company's activity in the region. He will report to Chris Mockford, head of operations in APAC at Outbrain.“Balani has extensive market knowledge and understands the challenges that publishers and brands in the Indian market are facing,” said Mockford. “He has played a key role in growing and cementing our business relationships in India, and through this appointment we will further strengthen our leadership structure across the region.”Balani said: "I'm really excited to embark upon this new role. We want to keep developing strong ties with all premium publishers and advertisers across the region to help them drive deeper audience engagement, deliver great user experiences and better leverage the unique capabilities of the Outbrain platform. It's a time of great change, but also great opportunity for the Indian market, and I look forward to working with our partners to realise those opportunities."