Zaiful Mohd Ariffin was appointed Director of Astro AWANI in June 2026. He is a senior Malaysian media executive and communications leader with extensive experience in news, journalism, editorial leadership, strategic communications, and audience engagement. 

As the Director of Astro AWANI, Malaysia’s leading 24-hour news and current affairs channel, Zaiful provides strategic leadership across a large-scale newsroom and a diverse portfolio of news, current affairs and talk programming. His role encompasses editorial direction, newsroom transformation, content strategy, talent development, and the continuous evolution of the channel in response to changing audience behaviour and the rapidly transforming media landscape.

A strong believer in the evolution of modern journalism, Zaiful is focused on building a media organisation that is not only credible and editorially strong, but also commercially sustainable, digitally relevant, and deeply connected to its audience. Under his leadership, his strategic priorities include transforming newsroom operations, strengthening the relevance and competitiveness of Astro AWANI’s content, expanding audience reach across platforms, developing distinctive programmes and intellectual properties, and identifying new commercial opportunities that complement the organisation’s editorial strengths.

Zaiful began his career in 1997 at Bernama, where he worked as a general and sports journalists. In 2000 he joined ntv7 and spent six years rising through the ranks from Assistant Producer to Producer, before joining Astro in 2007.