You watch the cricket. He makes sure 400 million people can watch it at the same time.
MOHAMMAD ALI just became Director at JioStar, and if you've watched IPL or any ICC tournament in the last decade, you've experienced his work without knowing his name.
Fourteen years in broadcast operations. Seven consecutive IPL seasons from 2018 to 2024. Ten ICC events between 2013 and 2024. World Cups. Champions Trophies. The tournaments where one technical failure becomes front-page news and social media explodes.
He wasn't commentating. He was making sure the broadcast didn't break.
At Disney Star, he rose from Senior Executive to Manager, leading content and promotional operations for India's biggest cricket spectacles. Then came COVID. While the world paused, he was part of the bio-bubble team keeping sports broadcasting alive. Business continuity. Employee wellness. Operational excellence under conditions no one had playbooks for.
That's where you learn what real pressure looks like.
Four years at JioStar as Senior Manager, leading projects and communication functions. Now as Director, he's overseeing strategic initiatives and cross-functional alignment during one of India's biggest media mergers. Jio and Star combining forces means integrating systems, teams, and technologies while keeping live sports on air without a single dropped frame.
Harvard University-certified in team management. Mass Media academics from University of Mumbai. But the real credential? A decade-plus of delivering flawless broadcasts during events where millions of viewers are watching every second, and any glitch trends on Twitter instantly.
Cricket broadcasting in India isn't just media operations. It's national infrastructure. When 400 million people tune in, the stakes are beyond business. They're cultural.
At Boardroom CXO, we're seeing more recognition for operational leaders in high-stakes live environments. Broadcasting, events, and real-time digital platforms are elevating leaders who can manage complexity, crisis, and scale simultaneously.
We run an invite-only CXO community with weekly networking and peer learning sessions where leaders discuss managing operations under extreme pressure and what it takes to deliver flawlessly when millions are watching. Interested? DM us.
For broadcast and live operations leaders: what's the hardest part of managing large-scale live events, the technical execution or managing stakeholder expectations when something goes wrong?
First published on the Boardroom CXO LinkedIn page on 17 December 2025. To correct or remove it, write to [email protected].
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