Crunchyroll has appointed Varun Sood as Regional Growth Lead, Asia and MENA, placing him at the centre of the streaming platform’s efforts to deepen subscriber growth, strengthen engagement and improve membership value across Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
Sood shared the new role in a LinkedIn post, marking another step in his career spanning streaming, sports, technology, consulting and consumer businesses.
In his new position, Sood will be responsible for key growth priorities across the region, including subscriber acquisition, engagement, retention and overall membership value. The expanded mandate comes as streaming platforms increasingly focus not only on adding subscribers but also on building longer-term relationships with audiences and improving the value generated from existing memberships.
From APAC Go-To-Market to Regional Growth
Sood joined Crunchyroll in April 2026 as Director, Go-To-Market, APAC, where he was responsible for go-to-market initiatives and subscriber growth across markets in the Asia-Pacific region.
His move into the Regional Growth Lead role expands that remit to cover Asia and MENA, bringing together markets with diverse consumer behaviours, digital ecosystems and entertainment preferences.
Sood’s experience across both subscription and advertising-led businesses gives him exposure to several of the commercial levers shaping today’s streaming industry—from pricing and monetisation to market entry, advertising technology and audience growth.
A Career Built Around Growth and Monetisation
Before joining Crunchyroll, Sood spent a brief period as an Independent Advisor, Media & Sports Monetisation, from January to April 2026. During that time, he worked on strategic assignments, including evaluating an IPL team acquisition for an Indian conglomerate.
That experience followed his stint at Apple, where he served as Head of App Store, India, from May to December 2025.
At Apple, Sood focused on business growth and monetisation for the Indian App Store storefront. His responsibilities included billings, developer partnerships and strategic initiatives aimed at strengthening the ecosystem.
His career then moved through some of India’s biggest digital entertainment and sports businesses, giving him a strong foundation in the commercial side of content platforms.
JioHotstar Experience Brings Sports Streaming Expertise
From December 2021 to April 2025, Sood was part of the sports strategy function at JioHotstar, where he led a 13-member team responsible for areas including pricing, go-to-market strategy, advertising technology, measurement and platform solutions.
The role placed him close to some of the country’s most valuable sports properties, including the Indian Premier League (IPL), ICC T20 World Cups, Asia Cups and the 2023 ODI World Cup.
Sood was involved in monetisation and revenue strategy for these properties, while also working on the transition towards a mobile-first, advertising-supported video-on-demand model.
His responsibilities covered pricing, advertising formats and commercial planning—areas that have become increasingly important as streaming companies experiment with different approaches to monetisation and audience engagement.
That combination of subscription growth and advertising-led streaming experience is particularly relevant to his new mandate at Crunchyroll, where audience expansion and membership value are central priorities.
Strategy Consulting Shaped His Commercial Perspective
Before JioHotstar, Sood spent more than three years at EY-Parthenon, joining in November 2018 and progressing from Vice President to Director, Strategy & Transactions before leaving in December 2021.
At EY-Parthenon, he worked with consumer and digital businesses across India, Southeast Asia and MENA.
His assignments included revenue expansion, market-entry strategies, profitability planning and commercial due diligence. This experience gave him exposure to businesses operating across different markets and helped build a broader understanding of how companies can identify new growth opportunities while improving commercial performance.
The regional nature of that work also closely aligns with his current responsibility for Asia and MENA.
Early Career Across Strategy, FMCG and Retail
Sood began his professional journey in sales at ITC, where he worked as an Area Sales Manager from June 2012 to January 2015, covering western Uttar Pradesh and Hyderabad.
He subsequently joined Tata Strategic Management Group in January 2015. During his nearly four-year tenure, he progressed through roles including Associate, Consultant and Project Leader.
At Tata Strategic Management Group, his work included strategy and commercial due diligence across the FMCG and retail sectors, along with projects involving sales and distribution, diversification planning and market-entry assessments.
These early experiences provided a foundation in consumer businesses, sales networks and commercial strategy before Sood moved into consulting, digital entertainment, sports streaming and technology.
What Sood’s Appointment Signals for Crunchyroll
Sood’s appointment comes at a time when streaming growth is increasingly being measured beyond headline subscriber numbers. Platforms are looking at how effectively they can acquire audiences, keep them engaged, reduce churn and increase the value of memberships over time.
For Crunchyroll, Asia represents an important market opportunity given the region’s large and diverse anime audience. Extending the growth mandate into MENA also brings additional markets into focus, each with distinct content consumption patterns and opportunities for digital entertainment services.
Sood’s background across Apple, JioHotstar, EY-Parthenon, Tata Strategic Management Group and ITC gives him experience spanning technology platforms, sports streaming, consulting, consumer strategy and monetisation.
His latest role therefore brings together several strands of his career: building go-to-market strategies, understanding consumer behaviour, developing monetisation models and identifying opportunities for regional expansion.
With responsibility now extending across Asia and MENA, Sood will be tasked with turning that experience into sustained subscriber growth and stronger member value for Crunchyroll across some of the world’s most dynamic entertainment markets.
