New faces and familiar ones join the roster for the Indian Media Leaders eSummit at the end of this month.

Yagna Balaji, who joins this year’s event, is founder-editor of DT Next, the English daily of Tamil Nadu's Daily Thanthi group, and heads website content for dtnext.in as well as the paper’s social media.

Instrumental in the launch of the Deccan Chronicle in 2005, she led the launch of Tamil Nadu tabloid the Chennai Chronicle, and then city-focussed DT Next, with a young and loyal readership and a reputation for investigative reports and hard-hitting stories.

Others include Quint co-founder Ritu Kapur, a regular speaker at WAN-Ifra events, Nina Goswami, who is creative diversity lead at the BBC in London, Corinne Podger of Australia’s Digital Skills Agency, WAN-Ifra South Asia director K N Shanth Kumar – a director of The Printers Mysore – and the global organisation’s director of insights Dean Roper and WEF director Cherilyn Ireton.

Expect insights from Navaneeth L, who came from Mindshare in Jakarta, returning to The Hindu Group as chief executive in June 2019. Before moving abroad in 2016, he led programming teams at Sun TV Network's Kannada and Telugu language channels, and was station director of Radio One.

And from Jayant Mammen Mathew, executive editor and director, Malayala Manorama, one of India’s largest media companies. Much of his time currently is spent in expanding MM’s television business, which includes 24-hour news and current affairs, and entertainment channel Mazhavil Manorama. He also oversees several publications and continues to write for the newspaper on business, economics and technology.

Mohit Jain is executive director and a board member of Times of India publisher Bennett, Coleman & Co and is responsible for operations, having held various group roles in the past almost 18 years. Diplomatic editor of The Hindu Suhasini Haidar is also scheduled to speak.

Expect more informed opinion from Indian journalist Rohini Mohan and Barkha Dutt. Mohan writes on politics, environment and human rights, contributing to publications and websites including Time, the New York Times, Economic Times, The Hindu, New Indian Express and CNN-IBN. Based in Bangalore, she won the 2019 Chameli Devi Jain Award for outstanding woman journalist.

TV journalism pioneer Barkha Dutt is an anchor-reporter with 23 years of experience and is India's only Emmy-nominated reporter for her work from Srinagar. She appears regularly as an analyst on TV including CNN, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, BBC and Al-Jazeera, and is founder-editor of digital platform Mojo Story.

Zuraidah Ibrahim is deputy executive editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where she oversees city and international desks and runs Sunday magazine This Week in Asia. She was previously deputy editor of Singapore’s Straits Times.

From Canada, Angela Pacienza is executive editor at the Globe and Mail, a role that includes oversight of programming, editing and visual journalism teams, focussing on driving culture change to create more nimble, inclusive and forward-thinking newsrooms.

The virtual event takes place from June 28-30. Check the programme here, or contact sureshbabu.kr@wan-ifra.org for more information.

Pictured: Nina Goswami (left) and Yagna Balaji