City of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, December 2025 — Mergan Velayudan has been elevated to Chief Technology and AI Officer at Media24 (Pty) Ltd, marking a significant leadership advancement within South Africa’s leading media company. In his expanded mandate, he now leads AI, engineering and enterprise technology across the organisation, driving group-wide innovation and digital transformation at scale.
In his most recent tenure at Media24 (Pty) Ltd, Mergan Velayudan served as Interim Chief Information Officer, where he led Consumer Product Engineering, Architecture and IT. In parallel, he also headed Artificial Intelligence for the Media24 Group, overseeing AI, data science and data engineering functions and strengthening the organisation’s capabilities across intelligent technologies.
Before joining Media24, he spent nearly fourteen years at the MultiChoice Group, where he most recently served as Executive Head: Emerging Technologies. In this role, he defined and implemented the organisation’s strategy for AI, cloud technologies and robotic process automation, built and scaled the Cloud Centre of Excellence, and established the AI Centre of Excellence—successfully embedding AI into mainstream business operations across the Group.
During his tenure at MultiChoice, he also served as Acting Group Chief Information Officer (CIO), leading an enterprise IT organisation of more than 600 professionals across architecture, software delivery, infrastructure, service operations, data engineering, PMO, SAP and HR Technology. Prior to that, as Head of Artificial Intelligence, he founded both the AI Centre of Excellence and the Cloud Centre of Excellence, driving organisation-wide innovation and transformation.
Earlier in his journey at MultiChoice, Mergan Velayudan held senior leadership roles including Technology Strategy Senior Manager – Software & Data Engineering, Head of Software Services, Senior Solutions Specialist, QA Manager, and Product Implementation Manager, shaping the organisation’s early AI, ML, and software engineering capabilities while leading major innovation programmes, pan-African user testing functions and large-scale technology portfolios.
Before his move into media and broadcasting technology, he served as Program Manager at Reutech Communications, delivering airborne communication systems to global clients across Sweden, Venezuela, Ecuador, India and Russia. He began his career at Altech UEC (Pty) Ltd, where he progressed through roles including Software Engineer, Senior Engineer, and Software Quality Engineer, contributing to next-generation satellite decoder design, graphics engines, embedded systems and software quality engineering disciplines.
About Media24 (Pty) Ltd
Media24 (Pty) Ltd is South Africa’s leading media group, with strong capabilities across digital media, book publishing, and television. As part of Naspers, a global media and e-commerce powerhouse, the company is committed to shaping the future of storytelling through excellent journalism, smart technology and innovative services. Guided by values of courage, integrity, accountability and respect, Media24 enriches lives by building communities through impactful stories, data-driven insights and technology-led solutions.
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