Ferzad Palia Joins UpGrad to Head D2C Learning Initiative

One of Asia’s largest integrated skilling and lifelong learning majors, upGrad, today announced a key leadership hire with the appointment of Ferzad Palia to set up and head its new Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) initiative. 

Having cemented its Consumer business through university-led programs, industry certifications, and study abroad offerings, upGrad is now entering its next phase of growth through on-demand skilling, catering to India’s next-gen learners seeking flexible, always-on learning.

Designed to serve this new wave of learners, Palia will lead the charge at upGrad to build a digital-first ecosystem powered by micro-learning formats, AI-driven personalisation, and scalable access, making learning more continuous, contextual and consumer centric than ever before. 

“It strengthens our mission to own the entire learning journey and turns skilling into a household habit, not just a job-switch trigger. Ferzad’s deep expertise in building high-scale, high-engagement content-driven platforms will help us unlock a wider segment – combined with tech that appeals to their fast-learning patterns”, said Ronnie Screwvala, Co-founder & Chairperson, upGrad.

Ferzad Palia brings over 25 years of experience across Consumer Tech, Media & Advertising. Most recently, he served as Senior EVP at JioStar (earlier Viacom18), where he was instrumental in setting up and scaling JioCinema, one of India’s largest streaming platforms. Prior, he set up and led key businesses for Viacom18 including Direct-to-Consumer, International distribution and the Youth, Music & English portfolio. Palia started his career at J Walter Thompson where he managed Unilever’s Personal Care brands. He also served at CNBC-TV18. 

Commenting on the new role, Ferzad added, “The opportunity to transform India’s upskilling and learning landscape at scale, is an exciting mandate. upGrad’s solid foundation and commitment to outcome-led learning provides the perfect springboard”.