Mr. Nitin Kalra
Director – SAARC Region, AI Licensing India Pvt. Ltd.

Mr. Kalra is the Director for SAARC Region at AI Licensing India, a company part of the Hong Kong based Animation International Limited. Under his leadership the company manages the licensing and merchandising business for 20th internationally renowned brands such as Doraemon, WWE, Archie Comics, Garfield, Dinosaur King and Little Krishna besides others. The company also has a strong trading and import-export business. Under his leadership, the company has also expanded operations in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Mr. Kalra started his career in 1996 as a freelance journalist covering beats such as entertainment and education for leading newspapers including The Times of India, The Indian Express, Deccan Chronicle, The Pioneer and The Statesman. After having contributed over 3,000 articles to leading national dailies, he set up his own media consultancy business in 2001. Some of the major clients his company acted as a consultant included Sony Entertainment Television, Nimbus Communications Ltd., T-Series, Universal Music Group, Rajshri Productions, Rajshri Media and several leading celebrities from the film industry.

In 2007, he joined STAR India Pvt. Ltd (a news corporation company) as part of their licensing and merchandising business where he was instrumental in setting up STAR TV’s licensed publishing business along with developing a robust CRM system for the network. He was also responsible for the successful implementation of a CSR initiative titled ‘Aap Ki Adalat – Aapke Dwar’, an on ground training program for social workers by the leading social activist and former IPS officer Mrs. Kiran Bedi. He left STAR to join Animation International as Business Head – Licensing in January 2010. He was elevated to be the Director of the company in October 2011.