Mumbai: Gaurav Gandhi, Vice President, APAC at Prime Video, was honoured as a “Visionary Shaping India’s Media & Entertainment Future” at the 2025 CII Big Picture Summit. The recognition was presented during the valedictory session by Rajan Navani, Co-Chair of the CII National Council on M&E and Managing Director & CEO of JetSynthesys, who also moderated a specially curated conversation with Gandhi.
The honour acknowledges Gandhi’s influential leadership in expanding streaming access across the Asia Pacific region, pioneering consumer-first content strategies, and strengthening India’s position in the global entertainment landscape.
During the session, Gandhi reflected on the principles that shaped his strategic approach to the industry. Highlighting the power of imagination in long-term decision-making, he said, “Every experience you go through, successful or not, shapes what you are going to do in the future. And if you learn from it, you get a sense of what the world could be. And I think oftentimes, to really change the world, you have to imagine what it could be and not just take it as it is.” He noted that this forward-looking mindset guided many of his foundational decisions when streaming was still emerging in India.
Gandhi also emphasized the significance of cultural authenticity in content creation. “Stories have to connect locally first before they can travel globally. If something doesn’t move its local audience, it rarely becomes world-renowned. We don’t think about designing a story to be global; at Prime Video, we think about telling a truly great story – and when that connection is authentic, the world follows.”
He added that this principle is already reflected in audience behaviour, with over 25% of viewership for Indian content on Prime Video now coming from outside India, demonstrating the global appeal of deeply local stories.
Discussing the balance between intention and execution in building a differentiated content ecosystem, Gandhi said, “There are so many things that you can be intentional about, but it’s not just about the intention, it’s about carrying it through in the execution. You can actually think and imagine a world, but if you can’t execute it, then there’s a challenge as well.” He explained how this thinking shaped Prime Video’s early content strategy—developing variety across languages while ensuring stories could travel both within India and globally. “In the early years of Prime Video, we knew if we had to create a variety of content across each language to build a sustainable business model. So, the thesis was, how can you make that content travel, not just globally, but also within the country.”
He pointed to intentional casting choices as game-changing decisions that helped build wider resonance. Collaborations such as Shahid Kapoor and Vijay Sethupathi in Farzi and Manoj Bajpayee and Samantha Ruth Prabhu in The Family Man Season 2 were deliberate moves to create truly pan-Indian appeal.
On leadership, Gandhi underscored curiosity as the most important quality in today’s rapidly evolving media landscape. “Curiosity is the starting point of everything. It’s the number one trait I look for – because it means being humble enough to acknowledge what you don’t know, and driven enough to seek answers and ask ‘why?’ or ‘why not?’ The biggest leaders are the most curious – that’s how they imagine the world differently.”
He further elaborated on his team-building philosophy: “I hire the best team and let them do their job. The best thing one can do as a leader, is to create more leaders. An important quality in leadership is knowing when to step in and support your team, and when to give them the space to experiment and do their own thing.”
Gandhi closed the session with insights on personal growth and inspiration, noting, “I play this mental game with my leaders and my teams – I imagine taking the best qualities of each person and building them into myself. That’s how I grow. Inspiration doesn’t come from one leader; it comes from everyone.”
The recognition at the Big Picture Summit reflects Gandhi’s role in shaping the future of India’s streaming ecosystem—bringing global best practices to local audiences while empowering local stories to reach global platforms.
