Management Team

Late Anant Pai, Founder Editor and Chief Story Teller

Anant Pai, popularly known as Uncle Pai, has been hailed as the Father of Indian Comics. He was a graduate of the University of Bombay with BSc and BSc(Tech) degrees. His deep interest in philosophy, languages, literature and the arts led him to take up writing as his career.

He launched Amar Chitra Katha in 1968 and went on to become the Founder Editor of Tinkle, a children's monthly magazine in the comic format, launched in 1981. Over his long career, he created several memorable characters and features including Ramu and Shamu, Kapish, Rekha, Fact Fantasy, Funland and Funtime, which continue to be serialised in leading newspapers and magazines.
He breathed his last on 24th February, 2011. He continues to serve as our inspiration.

Vijay Sampath, CEO

Vijay is an alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur and has 23 years of achievement across Media, Consumer Products, Franchising and Entrepreneurship. With key assignments at BlowPlast, Zee Network, Bennett Coleman & The Alia Group, he has worked with leading brands, created and led innovative business units, spearheaded corporate strategy and has been an entrepreneur.

Manas Mohan, COO

Manas has over 17 years of experience in Marketing, Communications, Media, Branding, Advertising, Promotions and Sales. Before joining ACK Media, where he currently heads the Direct-to-Customer and National Geographic business, he was the Director & Head - Marketing at Readers Digest.

Earlier, at Wunderman and at Lintas Direct, he had some of the best brands as his clients - Tata Sky, Jet Airways, FedEx, ICICI Prudential, Tata AIG, Castrol, etc. At Discovery Channel, he initiated brand advertising and the School contact programme across India. He holds an MBA from Lucknow and an advanced management diploma from ISB, Hyderabad.

Sayoni Basu, Publisher

Educated at Calcutta and Oxford, Sayoni Basu joined publishing in the hope of free books and free coffee. She has worked at OUP, Penguin, where she headed the children's list, and Scholastic. She believes that Indian children need fun and frivolous things to read, so that they grow up loving books in all forms, and she wants to find the great new children's authors. She has been published a few times, and she has also worked as a tea lady, security guard, college lecturer and librarian.

Reena I. Puri, Editor, Amar Chitra Katha

Reena has worked with Amar Chitra Katha since 1991. A post-graduate in English Literature from Delhi University, she worked with various newspapers and magazines till she discovered that writing comics was her forte.

Reena was Associate Editor of Tinkle and worked with Anant Pai till 2005. During her tenure, Tinkle became a 72-page monthly magazine from the earlier 32-page fortnightly. She started the Tinkle Holiday Specials and helped develop and create many new characters.

Reena became Editor of Amar Chitra Katha in 2007 and has led the revival of the series. She has also created storybooks in the series Amar Chitra Katha Junior. In her long association with the magazines, Reena does not remember even one day when she felt that she was coming to work, because it has been one fun-filled journey - and that is what she would like to convey through her books to every child.

Vishwanath Kotian, CFO

Vishwanath Kotian is responsible for Finance, Legal, Human Resources and Administration. Vishwanath joined ACK in April 2010.

Prior to joining ACK, Vishwanath was associated with Ernst & Young, leading a team of professionals in the assurance practice of M&E sector. Vishwanath has over 14 years of experience in M&A, Assurance and Corporate Taxation. He is a fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

Prakash Batna, VP - Sales

Prakash is an engineering graduate with an MBA from the Mumbai University and has more than 6 years of experience in Sales, Distribution and Business Development across different industries. Prakash started his career with consumer durables giant - Godrej Industries Pvt Ltd. He also had a successful stint as a product manager at Ingram Micro India Ltd, where he handled the sales and distribution of consumer durable products of brands like Philips GoGear and Hewlett Packard printers.

At ACK Media, Prakash played a key role in setting up the complete Sales and Distribution network for the entire range of print products and is currently driving sales of all ACK Media products. Faith had been a key driver in Prakash's move to ACK and he believes in Uncle Pai and the company's endeavour to equip every child, in India and abroad, with the unending knowledge and fun that ACK Media products bring.

Rajani Thindiath, Editor (Tinkle)

After a degree in Psychology and a Diploma in Animation, Rajani figured her love for reading and a fancy for telling tall tales could be better used in writing stories. She worked at NewsHouse, a children's newspaper from the house of Navneet, for four years and subsequently acquired a Diploma in Journalism.

Writing stories proved to be addictive, which is how she landed up at Tinkle, the comics magazine that had been a part of her growing years. In the last four years, besides writing for the regular Tinkle characters, she has also explored new ones such as Kishu the goose in 'To China', 'Jackie and the Beanstalk' in a parody of the fairytale, 'Sparks' the super cat and a girl who tames a temperamental horse in 'Taming of Shrew', among others. She still spins yarns, only now they end up in the pages of Tinkle!

Kushal Ruia, Creative Head - Animation

With a major in Animation and Filmmaking from Sheridan College (Canada), Kushal has over 8 years of experience in the Animation industry in India and Canada. At ACK-Media, Kushal has worked towards enhancing ACK Animation's creative vision and the quality of its products. In addition to conceptualising, developing and managing production of animation properties in India and abroad, he works closely with other creative teams to help define products in varied formats and mediums under the ACK umbrella.

Prior to this, Kushal animated at C.O.R.E Digital Pictures (Toronto) and worked in directorial capacities with some of the most respected names in Indian animation. As a visual storyteller, Kushal is also a published and critically acclaimed photographer with his works displayed at internationally reputed exhibitions.