Anant Goenka

Executive Director - The Indian Express Group

Anant Goenka is the Executive Director of The Indian Express Group.  A brand management graduate of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, Anant was  awarded a Dean’s scholarship for his Master’s in print journalism from the Annenberg School for Journalism, USC.

In a news environment flooded by either advocacy or clickbait, Anant has steered the expansion of the Express’s digital business in tune with the group’s enduring values of fairness, accuracy and courage. These were burnished by his grandfather Ramnath Goenka when he launched the group 85 years ago and are today the  hallmark of the group’s investigative and explanatory journalism.

The lndian Express Group is one of the world’s largest digital news media groups with over 200 million unique users a month in seven languages worldwide. In November 2022, its flagship was ranked the world’s 16th largest news site. Its investigative journalism has exposed offshore entities through reportage on the Panama Papers and other such data troves that led to the Indian government recovering over Rs 20,000 crore. Recent Express investigations have again helped shape public discourse by revealing vehicles meant for women’s security were used by politicians and many Indian lives were lost building FIFA World Cup infrastructure in Qatar.

Anant’s address at the Gateway of India on the 10th anniversary  of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, his writings on Punjab drugs, the  India-Pakistan border parade and on the future of media in a  polarised climate, have all been widely shared and  discussed. His 2015 interview with Aamir Khan was one of the  most watched interviews of the year.

Anant has been recognized as Asia One’s most influential young leaders for 2020 and again in 2021. He has also been awarded IAA global compass award in 2019. Forbes magazine says Anant exudes the energy that he promises to infuse into the venerable Express brand; Economic  Times recognises him as India’s 40 under-40 business  leaders and GQ has listed him one of India’s 50 most influential  young Indians.

Before The Indian Express, Anant worked at Spenta Multimedia  and with Bloomberg’s commercial team in UK. He is an aviation geek, enjoys motorsport, jazz music and, by his own admission,  is a persistently terrible drummer— but always to his own beat.