Avinash Kaul

At seventeen, Avinash Kaul lost his home. At thirty-six, he became a CEO. At fifty-three, he stepped away from the boardroom to tell the story of everything in between. That story became The Next Mountain, a deeply personal memoir for anyone still climbing their own mountain.

He left Kashmir on the night of 19 January 1990. His father put him on a crowded bus out of the city, and he rode on the engine bonnet because there were no seats left, the metal burning through his clothes in the freezing night air. By dawn, he was a refugee. In Jammu, he slept in a neighbour’s garage, stood in a refugee registration line for his family’s ration of rice, and studied in a makeshift government school housed in tents.

From there, he completed his engineering degree, graduating at the top of his class, before earning an MBA from Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. Over the next three decades, he built a career across J. Walter Thompson (HTA), Discovery Communications, Star TV, NDTV, Times Television Network and Network18, serving as CEO for sixteen years in one of the world’s most demanding news media environments: the world’s largest democracy, with channels in more than a dozen languages, through changes of government, and with business news run through every economic cycle. He most recently served as CEO, Network18 (Broadcast & Publishing), and Managing Director, A+E Networks | TV18, where he led CNBC-TV18, CNN-News18, History TV18 and Forbes India. He was named News Television CEO of the Year at ENBA 2019, and sits on the Managing Committee of The Advertising Club (2026–27).

The Next Mountain: Notes on Resilience, Leadership and Purpose (HarperCollins), written with Priya Kumar, is the story of that climb. Its ideas began on school climbing camps in the mountains of Kashmir, where preparation mattered, teamwork mattered and ego did not. Life tested those lessons over the decades that followed. Today, Avinash speaks on resilience, leadership and how business and media work together, and advises CEOs and founders. He lives in Mumbai with his family.