Devraj Sanyal raises the bar, becomes the Chairman & CEO India & South Asia and SVP Strategy, AMEA

Mumbai, 9^th March 2023: Mr. Devraj Sanyal has been elevated to become the Chairman & CEO India & South Asia and SVP Strategy, AMEA within the Universal Music India. This isn’t a surprise if someone has followed his career path closely. As he is gearing up to take Universal Music India (UMI) to greater heights, lets recap the professional life of Mr. Devraj Sanyal and the milestones he has been able to create.

Devraj Sanyal took over in early 2011 & is credited to have turned the predominantly music trading business into one of the most successful hedged music business models in the region. He has been running the Universal Music businesses for India & South Asia since 2011. In the past 11 years, he has groomed it into one of the most successful music business models in the region. UMI is now a 360-degree; music business including the label, live & artist promotions, merchandising and a creator of platforms for music & brands. It’s also the leading label for Indie & non-film music, carving a niche amongst Bollywood driven labels. Under his leadership, Universal now is a full-fledged 360 degree music business with the mother label sitting in the centre, along with independent profit making strategic business units in the live & artist promoter space, South Asia’s leading music merchandising business, the leading music agency which delivers end to end music solutions to the top brands in the region & the only new business unit which works music & brands into platforms in the region.

Devraj Sanyal’s domestic pop label “VYRL Originals” & domestic hip-hop label “DefJam India & Found Out Records” are now considered to be one of the market leaders of these genres in the non-film music category. UMI’s foray into the regional music space with a global deal with the Punjab’s largest label “Desi Melodies”, now compounded by their very own “VYRL Punjabi”, “VYRL Haryanvi”, “VYRL Bhojpuri” has them in the forefront of the regional non film music space as well. The country’s largest independent music platform for aspiring indie musicians “Indiea Records” is also a UMI initiative as it now enters its 3^rd year of allowing the most incredible genre, geography & language agnostic indie music to be published & marketed globally. Their recent global signing of Indian superstar “Badshah” exclusively to the group shows their commitment of breaking talent of Indian origin into the global stream-scape much faster than anyone else. Devraj is a future forward music professional who is readying to make our music industry count in the top 10 music markets in the world in the very near future.

His awards catalogue is unparalleled too, in many ways. His list of honours include IES’s prestigious “Udyog Rattan Award”, made the “Top 25 Executives Under 40 running India Inc” by Business Today for 2013/14, the Hindustan Times “Top 50 young Stars under 40”. He has been named in the Billboard “International Power Players” list in 2021 & 2022, two years in a row! Under his leadership, UMG got awarded the global excellence award from the Institute of Economic studies in 2013 as the best performing MNC in Entertainment in South Asia. Apart from the awards, he is credited as the co-founder of “Sunburn Festival”, “The Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week – Delhi” and a founding member of one of premier metal bands “Brahma”. Add to that his stint as a judge on “The Stage” and the jury of “The Midem Artist Accelerator”, and you know that you are getting to know one of the finest executives in Music and Entertainment business in India.

In his new role, we will be looking forward to more accomplishments for sure, these are going to be exciting times for UMI as well as Indian music industry!