Punit Goenka


Punit Goenka is the managing director and chief executive officer of Zee Entertainment Enterprises. Goenka is the elder son of Essel Group Chairman Subhash Chandra. Goenka grew up and studied in several towns and cities—Hisar in Haryana; Delhi; Sanawar in Himachal Pradesh and Mumbai—before moving to Institut Le Rosey, a boarding school in Rolle, Switzerland. He was elected as the President of Indian Broadcasting Foundation in the September, 2016 for a period of one year. He holds a bachelor's degree, B.Com from University of Mumbai 1995.
Training initially within the Essel Group, Goenka's first assignment, in 1993, was selling amusement park packages for Essel World to schools in Virar, Mumbai. He was assistant to the head of Essel Packaging, the floor supervisor of a factory, and executive assistant to his father for six months. He then joined Zee Music Company. He was put in charge of organizing funding for Agrani—a programme to launch the group's own satellite. He helped launch Dish TV, working with his uncle, Jawahar Goel, for a year in Delhi. He then moved back to Mumbai and ran Zee Sports. In 2005, he was appointed business head of Zee TV where he ran the content for the entire network. In 2008, he took over as CEO from Pradeep Guha.
Goenka is married to Shreyasi, an art patron and co-director of the Saat Saath Arts Foundation and they have two sons and a daughter.

Achievements

During his tenure as a CEO, ZEE has won Dun & Bradstreet Corporate Award 2015, IMC Fusion Award 2013 for Excellence in Media, Businessworld Infocom ICT Award 2012 etc.

Awards and recognition

Goenka was awarded the Business Today ‘Best CEO Award’ in the Media and Entertainment category for 2016. He has also received MIPTV's Médaille d'Honneur Award 2016, Economic Times ‘40 Under Forty’ India's Hottest Business Leaders Award 2014, the ‘Young CEO Award’ by CEO India magazine in 2015 and the IAA Leadership Award 2014 under the category of ‘Media Person of the Year Award’. Goenka has also been recognized as the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ during the Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Awards 2014. Punit was felicitated as the ‘IMPACT Person of the Year’ in 2014.