BOOM Team
Govindraj Ethiraj is a television & print journalist and also Founder of IndiaSpend & FactChecker.in, data journalism and fact check initiatives. He also anchors seasonal shows on Indian news television – recent ones being Aegons of Business on BloombergQuint and `Policy Watch’ on public service broadcaster Rajya Sabha or RS TV.
Previously, he was Founder-Editor in Chief of Bloomberg TV India, a 24-hours business news service launched out of Mumbai in 2008. Prior to setting up Bloomberg TV India, he worked with Business Standard newspaper as Editor (New Media) with a specific mandate of integrating the newspaper’s news operations with its digital or web platform. He also spent around five years each with CNBC-TV18 & The Economic Times. He is a Fellow of The Aspen Institute, Colorado, a McNulty Prize Laureate 2018 & a winner of the BMW Foundation Responsible Leadership Awards for 2014.
Jency Jacob is the Managing Editor of BOOM and has worked with some of the top television and print networks in the country. Jency manages a newsroom of enterprising fact checkers who are striving to keep our social media and public space clear of misinformation and communally sensitive disinformation that can result in real-life implications. Jency is also a regular speaker at various national and international conferences, speaking about the importance of battling misinformation and the media's role in countering them with credible and factual news stories.
Before joining BOOM, Jency was the Senior Editor at Business Standard’s Digital vertical and played a very important role in synergising the print and web operations and scale up the newsroom’s contribution to the web between 2013 to 2016. Having started his career as a business correspondent at the national broadcaster Doordarshan, he worked on various beats covering stock markets, corporate and led reporting and desk teams as the Mumbai News Editor and National Editor across several news channels.
Karen Rebelo is the Deputy Editor of BOOM and works as an investigative reporter, factchecker and a copy-editor. Her specialisation includes spotting and debunking fake images and viral fake videos. Karen is a former Reuters wires journalist and has covered the resources sector in the UK and the Indian stock market and private equity sector. She cut her teeth as a prime-time television producer doing business news shows.
H R Venkatesh is Director, Training and Research. In addition, he developed and leads Media Buddhi, the media literacy initiative at BOOM. Prior to this, he was a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University. In 2018, he founded the Ekta News Coalition, a collaboration of newsrooms and fact-checkers. Venkatesh was also a Knight Fellow at the International Center for Journalists in 2017-18. In 2015, he was part of the editors' team that launched and built The Quint. For nine years, he was also the Senior Anchor at CNN-IBN. Venkatesh has been educated at Bangalore, Symbiosis and Oxford universities. He is a Bangalorean who is now based in New Delhi.
Naveen Nair is Head-Operations at BOOM, overseeing production and execution of daily shows and videos. He leads a team of producers, video journalists and video editors and is responsible for developing a digital strategy and integrating it across multiple media platforms. He is a media professional with over 15 years of experience, worked in media houses such as Network 18, ESPN- Star Sports.
Abdul Hamid Khan (Hamid) is Product Head at BOOM, has over 14 years of professional experience in managing websites, web design and online ad operations. He leads a team of developers, design team and oversees all product and tech requirements across Web Platforms. Prior to joining us, Hamid was Team Lead at Business Standard digital edition for over a decade, looking after Web, UI as well as Online Ops. Before Business Standard, Hamid worked with CNBC for 2 years.
Swasti Chatterjee is a fact-checker and the Deputy News Editor of Boom’s Bangla team. She has worked in the mainstream media, in the capacity of a reporter and copy editor with The Times of India, The Indian Express and NDTV.com and is now working as a digital detective, debunking fake news.
Nivedita Niranjankumar is a fact checker at BOOM and works to stop the spread of disinformation and misinformation. When not at work, she escapes into second-hand bookstores, looking for magic or a mystery.
Sumit Usha is a fact checker and the News Editor of Boom’s Hindi wing. In the six years of his journalistic career, he has worked with the New Indian Express, Times of India and Deccan Chronicle. The dynamic nature of digital media finally made him take the leap from print to online, and don the hat of a digital detective.
Shachi Sutaria is a fact-checker at BOOM. She has previously worked as a health research analyst at AMS Consulting, Lucknow for various national and international clients. She is a post- graduate in Public Health- Health administration from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Anmol Alphonso is a fact-checker with BOOM. He has previously interned at IndiaSpend as a fact-checker and was a reporting intern at Times of India, Indian Express, and Mid-Day. He is a post-graduate diploma holder in journalism from St Paul’s Institute of Communication Education, Mumbai.
Archis is a fact-checker and reporter at BOOM. He has previously worked as a journalist for broadsheet newspapers and in communications for a social start-up incubator. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris and a Master’s in Media and Political Communication from the University of Amsterdam.
Mohammed Kudrati is a post-graduate in economics from the University of Mumbai, and enjoys working at the junction of data and policy. His specialisations include data analysis and political economy and he previously catered to the computational data analytical requirements of US-based pharmaceutical clients.
