Indiagames founder and CEO Vishal Gondal to resign

Vishal Gondal, founder and CEO of Indiagames and currently managing director of DisneyUTV Digital, is set to resign at the end of June, the company has announced.

Gondal will be replaced by Sameer Ganapathy, who previously headed DisneyUTV’s media networks distribution business.

Indiagames started out in 1999 as a mobile game developer and publisher and has grown over the years to become one of India’s largest mobile game publishers.

In 2005, Chinese games company TOM Games had acquired a majority stake in Indiagames, but Gondal has remained CEO. A couple of years later, UTV acquired a majority stake in Indiagames, and after UTV was bought out by Disney, Indiagames was acquired for close to $100 million and merged into the newly formed DisneyUTV Digital division.

Under the DisneyUTV Digital banner, Indiagames is currently the only publisher to have recorded 200 million downloads on the Nokia Store. It also currently distributes EA’s feature phone games in India.

Indiagames had small beginnings but a big dream. I cannot help but look back with a tremendous sense of fulfilment and pride, upon the long, eventful and exciting journey. I am really proud of what the team has accomplished,” Gondal said.

Over last 18 months, we have spent time integrating the teams and setting up a platform for continued growth. Consequently, I’ve decided to move on to pursue my dreams and passion of being an entrepreneur,” Gondal added.

Vishal has been a great founder and CEO for Indiagames. As we consolidate the digital, mobile and web play for DisneyUTV in India, we plan to build on our creative prowess and transform the digital business to be direct-to-consumer, yet working closely with all our partners, telecom operators, OEMs and others. This is similar to our approach in our other verticals of movies, broadcasting and consumer products,” DisneyUTV’s managing director Ronnie Screwvala said.

Sameer Ganapathy brings an astute business sense and high resourcefulness to this position, which is key to meet the ever growing trajectory of the digital business in India.”

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