Singtel-owned OTT (over-the-top media services) platform Hooq promoted Gautam Kiyawat to the position of Managing Director of Singapore. The current Head of Freemium, Kiyawat will perform his new duties in addition to his existing role.

Kiyawat will replace Adrian Teo who was the country director. Kiyawat has experience working with Star TV, BlackBerry, P&G and an Indian media agency called Madison. He was also the founder of Peppylocals, a startup.

For Hooq, building an audience in countries like Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines where the people consume a lot of free content from multiple sources, setting up a balanced business model has been a challenge. Kiyawat noted that they are endeavoring to appeal to that layer of the audience who are willing and able to pay for content of great quality.

The next step for Hooq Singapore, according to Kiyawat, is to give users a seamless experience of trying out free content for starters and then sign up for customized packages. The OTT platform is going to use digital wallets to provide that seamless experience.