Introduction
Samir Jain (Hindi: समीर जैन; born 11 March 1954) belongs to the Sahu Jain family and is the current Vice-Chairman of India's largest media group, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd., parent company of The Times of India and other large newspapers.
Education and personal life
Samir Jain was educated at St. Stephen's College earning a degree in B.A. Programme. He is married to Meera Jain and is father to Trishla Jain who is an artist.
Career
In 1975 Samir joined the family owned Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. as a junior executive. Over the next 7 years he gained experience and was soon managing the company's media interests while his father Ashok Jain managed the non-publishing parts. By 1982 Samir was vice-chairman and running the entire company as his father pursued by charges of fraud and suffering from a weak heart departed to seek medical treatment in the United States. Samir spent the 1980s remaking Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL) into an innovative marketing company. He sensed the zeitgeist and was poised when the liberalisation reform in 1991 allowed a new Indian with money to spend and immediate desires to gratify. His business proposition was simple: he would connect sellers of goods to this vast market of consumers. He was the first in media industry to dispense with the post of an Editor.
During Samir's time, Times of India has become the largest circulating English newspaper in the world.