National Content Director – Digital, Gaana
Indira Rangarajan has spent three decades building some of India’s most listened-to audio content – across advertising, radio, digital, and streaming. She currently serves as National Content Director – Digital at Gaana, where she is driving the platform’s next content chapter: artist-led exclusives, audio originals, and a premium streaming identity built for India’s evolving listener. A regular speaker at All About Music (AAM) and industry forums, her work has been recognised at the NY Festival, ACEF, Golden Mikes, ERA Awards, and the Chairman’s Award for Excellence at Bennett Coleman Co. Ltd. She received the Women Leadership Achievement Award in 2016.
Early Career & Media
Indira Rangarajan started in advertising – as Copywriter at RK Swamy BBDO in Chennai, then Creative Supervisor at Ogilvy & Mather, working on campaigns for Pond’s, Vaseline, Aircel, and TI Cycles, before joining SSC&B Lintas as Associate Creative Director on national campaigns for Kissan, Dell, and Kwality Walls. That training – sharp briefs, audience-first thinking, no room for filler – shaped how she would later approach audio content. She joined Mirchi and has spent over two decades there. As AVP Programming Head in Mumbai, she took the station from 4th to 1st position in RAM ratings. From there she grew into progressively larger roles – Regional Head for West and Central India, EVP and National Programming Head – before taking on digital content strategy for the network.
Transition to Multi-Format Content Creation
At Mirchi, Indira Rangarajan moved steadily from radio programming into building content across formats – original audio, video, YouTube, and eventually streaming. As National Content Director – Digital, she developed Mirchi’s premium Originals slate, building the editorial and production frameworks that took audio fiction and non-fiction from one-off experiments to a repeatable, scalable business. The shows she produced became benchmarks for Indian audio storytelling – 1000 Crore Ki Laash featuring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Aakhri Rishta with Neena Gupta, and Purane Khat featuring Rhea Chakraborty – each earning both audience loyalty and critical recognition.
She was part of the core team that conceived and launched Mirchi Plus – Mirchi’s audio OTT app – defining its content identity and original programming slate from the ground up. On YouTube, she built and scaled original IPs for Mirchi’s channels, developing content designed to travel – understanding early what made video content discoverable, shareable, and community-building in the Indian market. She also brought that same editorial lens to Mirchi Bangla – mentoring its storytelling slate, developing new IPs, and helping build the content framework for regional audio fiction that could scale without losing cultural specificity. In December 2023, she moved to Gaana to apply that body of work to the streaming context.
About The Companies
Gaana, part of the Times Internet ecosystem, is one of India’s leading music streaming platforms – home to millions of tracks across languages and genres, with a growing portfolio of audio originals and podcasts. Indira leads its content strategy, with a focus on exclusives, artist partnerships, and regional storytelling.
Mirchi (ENIL) is India’s largest radio network and a multiplatform entertainment brand spanning FM, digital, live events, and original content. Its audio originals slate – which Indira helped build – set an early benchmark for premium audio storytelling in India.
Impact & Vision
The shows tell the story better than any summary can. From What Women Want with Kareena Kapoor Khan and Calling Karan with Karan Johar, to award-winning audio fiction featuring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Neena Gupta – Indira has consistently found the intersection of the right story, the right voice, and the right moment. She has been part of the Mirchi Music Awards since its inception – contributing to its creative direction, building its YouTube presence, and developing viral content that extended the property’s reach well beyond the awards night. In recent years she has been building and piloting AI-driven content projects – exploring generative audio, synthetic media, and new creator-led formats at the intersection of technology and storytelling. “Every cadence, every pause, every word carries a story. And people need stories as much as they need food and water.
