ITV Hires Channel 4's Bala as Chief Data & AI Officer

British broadcaster ITV has appointed rival Channel 4's Head of Data Science Sanjeevan Bala as Group Chief Data & AI Officer. He will take up his new position in May.

Bala (pictured) joined Channel 4 more than eight years ago as Head of Planning & Analytics (Audience Technologies & Insight), before moving to his current role three years ago. Earlier, he held senior positions at PwC, dunnhumby and several Silicon Valley start-ups.

In his new role, Bala will lead the transformation of ITV's data and AI strategy, raise the overall data capability and accelerate the adoption of AI to fuel growth. In addition, he will head up a team, providing both data science to create new value, and analytics to drive experimentation across ITV's commercial staff.

He will report into CMO and director of Direct-to-Consumer Rufus Radcliffe, who comments: 'Sanjeevan has a proven track record of using data to drive commercial value, and we look forward to him building upon the foundations already established to take ITV's data strategy to the next level'.

Web site: www.itv.com .