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Last week was a historical week for the entertainment industry and more so for the South Asian contingent. We saw the debut of Lilly Singh’s late-night show ‘A Little Late with Lilly Singh’ on NBC making her the first-ever woman of color to host a late-night talk show. While Lilly Singh and Hasan Minhaj are making huge strides in television, we have many South Asian artists making their mark behind the scenes on the corporate side of the entertainment world. Punit Ruparel is a rare breed entertainment professional with an MBA in Finance and a Masters in Project Management who is redefining the way content is produced and distributed around the globe.
Born and raised in India, Punit has made a name for himself in America as a sharp producer who helps big studios amplify their content and reach bigger audiences. Starting out as a professional dancer, Punit pursued a Diploma in Media Studies and started working with Vivek Vaswani – one of the most notable producers in India. Punit was also on the team that helped launch MasterChef in India. Taking a cue from working on the show, Punit realized that there is a big international market for content distribution. This is why after pursuing Media Studies and working in Bollywood for a few years, Punit made his way to the United States for his MBA.
While pursuing his MBA from Johns Hopkins University, Punit studied and worked with Tamana Rosenberg, the Oscar-winning producer and he also assisted Erica Motley, the Executive Producer of the show ‘Taboo’. Working with both of them gave Punit a crash course in understanding the Hollywood media landscape which proved vital when he graduated. With a unique combination of Finance and Media Management, Punit decided to enter media consulting wherein he worked closely with MGM Studios, Comcast NBCUniversal, Univision, and Major League Soccer. He helped the studios produce content for different categories. Be it for starting a new business arm or reviving an old IP, Punit’s knowledge of global content distribution has made him invaluable with technology making the world smaller and smaller.
Punit lives in New York City and is well connected within the local South Asian community in the world of media and entertainment. In less than two years of living in NYC, he has established himself as a go-to-person for experts in the field and is known for his creative solutions to almost any production and content related challenge presented to him. His amiable nature and can-do attitude have won him the trust and acquaintance of people trying to do things differently from traditional methods of content creation and distribution.
When Punit is not busy working for the top studios, he is busy shooting pilot episodes for a TV show that he is pitching to the networks and teaching media consulting at George Washington University and his alma mater Johns Hopkins University. Whether his TV show gets picked or not, one thing is for sure, Punit’s way of looking at producing content with his advantage of MBA and Project Management methodology brings a fresh, unique and creative perspective that the entertainment industry could benefit from.
We can’t wait to see what more accomplishments he will bring to the South Asian table in the future!
