Sruthijith KK, who is one of the youngest editorial leaders at The Economic Times (ET), turned 40 this Sunday. KK joined ET as the Executive Editor less than four months back when he was 39.With over 18 years of professional experience, KK has worked with various top publications under various capacities. Prior to ET, KK was the Editor-in-Chief of Mint at HT Media for almost three years.KK has worked with ET on two separate occasions previously as well. He was the Assistant Editor at ET from 2009 to 2014 and then the Editor of ET Magazine from June 2018 to October 2020. In between, from September 2017 to May 2018, he was with Apple as the App Store Editor. KK has also held top and prominent positions in organisations like HuffPost India and Quartz, where he provided insightful analysis on the economic landscape through high-quality content and engaging storytelling.From November 2014 to August 2017, KK was the Editor-in-Chief of HuffPost India, a position he held for two years and 10 months. Prior to that, KK was the Editor at Quartz India for six months. He became the Editor of Quartz at 30. After a very short stint at Quartz, KK moved on to became the Editor of HuffPost when he was still aged 30. KK then became the Editor of Mint at just the age of 36. KK also made a name for himself by reporting on media, entertainment and technology (TMT). From 2002 to 2005, he did multiple stints including one at the Centre for Civil Society.In September 2023, when KK assumed the role of Executive Editor at ET, S Sivakumar, Chief Executive Officer (Publishing), BCCL, in a press statement said, “Sruthijith brings a wealth of experience and a strong track record in the media Industry, having worked across print and digital platforms. His deep understanding of the evolving media landscape and his ability to successfully navigate the challenges and leverage the opportunities of digitalisation of the media ecosystem makes him a valuable addition to our ET leadership team.”KK holds a graduate degree in BA from Delhi University.Tracking KK’s career path brings us to the bigger question here: Is the average age of editors getting lower? Moreover, is extensive digital experience and cutting your teeth in the digital domain essential for editorial leadership?Today, established media houses, who are taking the lead in B2C digital assets, have mandated their teams not to hire professionals and editors who are above 40 years of age in the digital domain. The whole idea is to hire professionals below the age of 35 in the editorial domain to foster overall guidance. Young people are the largest consumer of content today, and younger leaders better understand what these readers, who are in the age group of 22 to 38, want.

Let us put this in perspective. This is not the first time ET has brought young editorial leaders. Rahul Joshi, who is now the Editor-in-Chief of news TV, news broadcast and digital news business of Network18, was appointed the Executive Editor of ET at the age of just 36. Joshi had become the Resident Editor of ET when he was about 33 or 34 years old. In fact, when Joshi became the Resident Editor of ET, Rajrishi Singhal was the Executive Editor. For a period of almost two years, both Singhal and Joshi were running ET together.

Singhal was the Executive Editor from Jan 2004 till April 2007 for a period of three years and four months. However, in April 2007, Joshi started running ET editorially as the Executive Editor.Apart from Joshi, the current head of the Editorial Board of TOI, Jaideep Bose (best known as Jojo), also started working at ET when he was in his twenties and became the Executive Editor of the publication when he was just 32-33.The Times Group and ET are known for spotting leadership talent and nurturing them to lead editorial products and newsrooms. The youth and digital experience have now become a prerequisite for leading venerable editorial products.And not just the Times Group, but the trend seems to be prevalent in several other publications as well. Vir Sanghvi became the Editor when he was in his 20s and Rajat Sharma too became an Editor in his 20s. Even MJ Akbar became an Editor when was very young.

Ravi Krishnan who replaced Sruthijith KK at Mint is also in his early 40s. Binoy Prabhakar, who was Moneycontrol Editor and now works as Chief Content Officer at HT, is also in his early 40s.