Sayan Ganguly
Summary
Results-driven Editor with nearly 10 years of experience leading high-impact news coverage with a strong focus on accuracy, audience engagement, and publication profitability. Skilled at strategically assigning stories to leverage individual writers' strengths and shaping content to align with editorial goals. Skilled at motivating cross-functional and cross-cultural teams to deliver high-quality journalism under tight deadlines. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, combined with a deep understanding of the evolving digital and social media landscape. Actively exploring advancements in Artificial Intelligence to develop innovative, engaging content strategies that capture and retain audience attention.
Overview
12
12
years of professional experience
Work History
Assistant Editor
India Today
12.2024 - Current
- Interviewed sources, contacts and leads to gather information for stories.
- Developed story ideas, including investigative pieces, and wrote breaking news reports, columns, and analytical articles.
- Conducted comprehensive research to fact-check articles, ensuring the reliability and credibility of information.
- Highlighted issues of public interest and importance to drive change.
- Reviewed finished work prior to publication, noting edits and approving final versions.
- Coordinated with reporters, and graphic designers to produce compelling and visually appealing articles.
- Implemented SEO strategies in online content to increase web traffic and reader engagement.
- Led the implementation of AI-enhanced editorial processes within CMS workflows to streamline both breaking news and deep dives, significantly improving turnaround time.
- Evaluated and fact-checked all copy to verify accuracy and quality of work.
- Oversaw a team of junior editors and writers, providing guidance, quality checks, and feedback to enhance their skills.
DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR
REPUBLIC WORLD
11.2023 - 11.2024
- Developed news stories, assigning them to reporters and editors for further development.
- Wrote explainers and columns, produced and anchored podcasts and explainers for Youtube.
- Worked closely with both input and output desks from TV to synchronise and use digital platform to boost overall agenda.
- Increasing engagement in social media platforms like X by live tweeting, streaming of events to creatives and polls.
- Focused on best SEO and SMO practices that helped grow users more than 10 times (Month on Month) since November.
- Reviewed incoming story ideas from staff members, freelancers and other sources.
- Ensured accuracy of facts in all stories before they were published or broadcasted.
- Edited copy, headlines and captions to ensure clarity and accuracy.
- Coordinated with other departments such as graphics, photojournalism and web production to ensure a high quality product was produced on deadline.
- Reviewed articles written by staff writers for grammar, punctuation, spelling, style and content.
- Mentored junior editorial staff on writing techniques and story structure.
- Conducted interviews with public figures related to the news stories.
Freelance Content Writer
INDEPENDENT WRITING AND EDITING PROFESSIONAL
11.2022 - 11.2023
- Writing on stock markets and personal finance.
- Producing thought leadership pieces, scripts for personal finance and investment videos.
- Researched and wrote original content for websites, newsletters, and blogs.
- Managed multiple projects simultaneously while meeting all deadlines.
- Developed SEO-friendly content that was optimized for search engine visibility.
- Proofread and revised articles before submitting them to clients.
- Conducted keyword research to identify relevant topics for articles.
ASSISTANT EDITOR
FINANCIAL EXPRESS
05.2022 - 11.2022
- Ran live blogs on several current topics from Presidential elections in India to Rajya Sabha Elections to Byelections.
- Selected, edited and rewrote news reports and features, vetting the India page and special stories.
- Covered election and parliamentary processes; churned out several original stories based on exclusive interviews and interactions.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR (CRICKET & NEWS)
YAHOO
06.2016 - 08.2021
- Front-led a team of 11 freelancers and devising creative content path for Social Media Marketing including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with millions of page likes.
- Utilized tools like Crowdtangle to monitor viral stories within the company and of competitors on FaceBook.
- Gathered inputs from who's who of the industry, creating engaging stories, refining & finalizing content for Listicles, Slideshows, Articles, Interviews, Quizzes & Videos.
- Worked in close coordination with Engineers and Business Development Team.
- Ensured all content is on-brand, consistent in terms of style, quality and tone of voice and optimized for search & user experience for all channels including social, web, email, print and other media.
- Supervised the team as an arbiter of best practices in grammar, writing, and style; ensuring that each document meets prescribed quality standards and norms.
- Liaised & coordinated with the clients for gathering their specific requirements; disseminating the updates & synchronizing social media and content team to work on the projects.
- Planned & designed style, using appropriate pictures and suggesting graphics or illustration possibilities.
- Excellence in building content strategies, creating engaging stories by optimizing Videography and basic Editing capabilities.
- Expert in quickly sizing up assignments, setting priorities, creating a timeline and delivering high quality content for multiple platforms within defined frameworks.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; passion for keeping up-to-date with developments in the digital and social media landscape.
- Staying up-to-date with developments and creating new & engaging ideas for content to draw audience's attention.
- Team Management; Successfully managing work of freelancers, in-house content team and mentoring them through specific company content requirements.
COPY EDITOR
NEWSMOBILE
02.2015 - 04.2015
- Edited news stories for grammar, clarity, and accuracy.
CONTENT WRITER & EDITOR
TOPPER LEARNING, NETWORK 18
06.2014 - 12.2014
- Produced and edited education-focused digital content.
STAFF WRITER
SCOOPWHOOP PVT. LTD.
12.2014 - 01.2014
- Created viral and social-first stories for youth audiences.
Education
PGDM - Journalism (New Media)
Asian College of Journalism
01.2014
BBA - International Business
Symbiosis International University
01.2012
Commerce -
Don Bosco School, Bandel
01.2009
Skills
- Content Strategy
- Creative Editing & Writing
- Multimedia Storytelling
- Social media proficiency
- Broad knowledge of local, national and global news topics
- Content Analytics
- Google Analytics
- AI Prompt Engineering
- Quantitative Research
- Usability Requirements
- Textual & Graphic Illustrations
- Stakeholder Relations
- Proof Reading
- Team Management
- New Idea Generation
- Content Virality
- Organic Conversions
- User Engagement
- Breaking News Coverage
- Interviewing techniques
- Content Management Systems
- Staff Training and Development
Languages
English
Bengali
Hindi
Personal Information
Date of birth: 1990-08-11
Achievements
- Increased conversion rate and augmented consumer growth for several Cricket Tentpole Events like Champions Trophy (2017), World Cup (2019).
- Attracted & gained approx. 80 million users on both occasions despite of limited budget & resources.
- Successfully boosted Yahoo Cricket FaceBook page from 1.9 to 3.1 million (2016 to 2021) with organic audience.
- Successfully creating topic pages for burning issues like Coronavirus and Olympics for Yahoo; centering them around live blogs and originals that led us to record breaking Monthly Average Users (5-7 million MAUs) in news from 2020 Q2 till 2021 Q3 with a spike in search traffic from below 3% to 25% during this period.
- Performed several SEO best practices like key words in headline/url/meta description, hyperlinking, ideating product changes helped reduce bounce rate and increase daily visitors (7-10% increase year on year).
- Bagged opportunity amongst 25 journalists to represent India in the prestigious Future News summit organized by British Council, BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera and CNN at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
- Successfully unblocked engineering bottlenecks & secured content from PTI (one of India's largest news agencies) for Yahoo India and down the line, one of Yahoo India's major drivers of traffic.
Timeline
Assistant Editor
India Today
12.2024 - Current
DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR
REPUBLIC WORLD
11.2023 - 11.2024
Freelance Content Writer
INDEPENDENT WRITING AND EDITING PROFESSIONAL
11.2022 - 11.2023
ASSISTANT EDITOR
FINANCIAL EXPRESS
05.2022 - 11.2022
ASSOCIATE EDITOR (CRICKET & NEWS)
YAHOO
06.2016 - 08.2021
COPY EDITOR
NEWSMOBILE
02.2015 - 04.2015
STAFF WRITER
SCOOPWHOOP PVT. LTD.
12.2014 - 01.2014
CONTENT WRITER & EDITOR
TOPPER LEARNING, NETWORK 18
06.2014 - 12.2014
PGDM - Journalism (New Media)
Asian College of Journalism
BBA - International Business
Symbiosis International University
Commerce -
Don Bosco School, Bandel