Govind Balakrishnan

Govind Balakrishnan grew up in India with a love of physics and media, attending the Indian Institute of Technology Madras before moving to London to study at the intersection of design and engineering at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College. His career path led him to the BBC, where he spent years leading strategy for BBC News and witnessed first-hand how exceptional journalism could get lost in the noise of breaking news cycles and social media feeds.

That frustration became the seed of Curio, which he co-founded with Srikant Chakravarti in 2016. As CEO, Govind built the platform into an award-winning audio journalism app — partnering with publications including the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Economist and Wired — that helps listeners consume high-quality, curated journalism on the go through professional narration and, more recently, AI-powered personalised audio.

Under his leadership Curio raised over $11 million, was named App of the Year by Google, and was featured at Apple's global Keynote event. Govind has spoken widely about the future of audio media and the role technology can play in making quality journalism accessible to a broader, more diverse global audience.