The past one year witnessed significant changes in the top management of several telecom businesses operating in India. The changing telecom landscape and the emergence of new growth strategies resulted in considerable churn in the senior management, leading to a number of appointments, promotions and resignations. There were a series of exits by key personnel from the new entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL). Meanwhile, operators that had received payments bank licences from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 2015 hired experts to drive the business. Also, the leadership changed hands in the telecom ministry, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund.
tele.net takes stock of the key movements in the industry, across government bodies, operators, infrastructure service providers, and network, technology and handset vendors during 2016…
Government bodies
In July 2016, Manoj Sinha was appointed as the new telecom minister. He took charge from Ravi Shankar Prasad, who now serves as the minister for electronics and information technology.
Earlier, in February 2016, J.S. Deepak replaced Rakesh Garg as telecom secretary, DoT. Prior to this, Deepak was serving as secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY). DeitY was separated from the Ministry of Communications and IT in mid-2016 and made an independent ministry, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
In February 2016, Sanjay Singh was appointed administrator, USO Fund. He was entrusted with the additional charge of the post of chairman and managing director (CMD), Bharat Broadband Network Limited. Singh replaced Aruna Sundararajan, who was appointed secretary, MeitY. Sundararajan previously worked as chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Common Service Centre.
Service providers
Bharti Airtel
In March 2016, Bharti Airtel appointed Christian Defaria as executive chairman of its Africa operations. Prior to this, Defaria was chief operating officer (COO) at Airtel Africa. He was replaced by Raghunath Mandava, who was serving as director, customer experience, India and South Asia. Meanwhile, Mandava’s role was taken over by Sarang Kanade, who was CEO of the Delhi circle. Recently, in December 2016, Defaria was appointed chairman of the operator’s Netherlands operations, while Mandava was promoted to managing director (MD) and CEO of the company’s Africa operations. In his new role, Mandava has become a permanent invitee to the Bharti Airtel board, representing Airtel Africa.
In June 2016, Shashi Arora was appointed CEO and MD of Airtel Payments Bank. He replaced Manish Khera, who moved on to pursue entrepreneurial interests. In July, Ashok Ganapathy was appointed director, Airtel business. He succeeded Manish Prakash, who was appointed director, strategic alliances. Meanwhile, Airtel’s consumer director, India, Srini Gopalan, resigned to join Deutsche Telekom. In October 2016, Airtel Payments Bank appointed Abhishek Tripathi as the head of its small and medium business division.
Sunil Bharti Mittal was reappointed chairman of Bharti Airtel for five years, with effect from October 1, 2016. In addition, Mittal was appointed as chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, and chairman of the GSM Association for a two-year period beginning January 2017. Mittal is the first Indian to be elected chairman of the GSM Association.
In November 2016, Airtel appointed Vani Venkatesh as CEO of its retail business. This was followed by Sunil Taldar’s appointment as director and chief executive of its direct-to-home business. Taldar took over from Shashi Arora, who moved to Airtel Payments Bank. During the same month, Airtel Payments Bank appointed Dhiraj Sharda as its chief digital officer (CDO).
MTNL
Narendra Kumar Yadav stepped down as CMD of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) in June. He had been given this additional charge in June 2015 while he was member, services, at DoT. P.K. Purwar, director, finance, MTNL, has now been given additional charge as CMD. He had earlier held this position between June 2014 and June 2015.
RCOM
In March 2016, Alpna Doshi resigned as chief information officer (CIO) of Reliance Communications (RCOM) after a term of more than six years. Later, in October 2016, Vinod Sawhny stepped down as CEO of RCOM. William Barney and Gurdeep Singh are currently working as acting co-chief executives of the company.
RJIL
RJIL saw several high-profile exits ahead of, as well as during, the operator’s 4G service launch. These included those of Sandeep Das, MD; Sumit D. Chowdhury, president, enterprise; R. Srikanth, president and chief finance officer (CFO); Ralph Steffens, president and COO, FTTX business; Amitabh Jaipuria, president and head, mobility business; Martijn de Jong, chief digital marketing officer and senior vice-president (VP) of digital channels; Maya R. Nair, assistant VP, security operations; Pawan S. Yadav, business head of public Wi-Fi; Pradeep Shrivastava, chief marketing officer (CMO); and Vijay Jain, president and business head, fixed line. In May 2016, Vishal Sampat joined RJIL as CDO and is spearheading the company’s digital marketing initiatives.
SSTL
In March 2016, Rajeev Batra, CIO of Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited (SSTL), resigned to join media organisation Bennett Coleman & Company Limited. At SSTL, Batra was responsible for driving the strategic adoption of information technology solutions.
Telenor
In September 2016, Manish Prakash joined the Norway-based Telenor Group as head, enterprise. Prior to this, he worked at Bharti Airtel as director of strategic alliances. Recently, in December 2016, Vivek Sood resigned as executive VP and CMO of the Telenor Group. Sood had also served as CEO of Telenor India from January to November 2015. In the past, he has worked with Uninor India as executive VP, finance.
TTSL
In July 2016, Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) appointed Amitabh Bhatia as the consumer business unit (CBU) head of the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana circle. Prior to this, Bhatia was serving as head of TTSL’s Gujarat circle.
Vodafone India
In February 2016, Vodafone India appointed Rahul Bhagat as adviser to conceptualise its payments bank business. Bhagat is responsible for permissions, commercial planning and structuring the business in line with the RBI’s guidelines.
Industry associations
In February 2016, the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) appointed Kunal Shah and Vishwas Patel as its chairman and treasurer respectively. Shah is co-founder of the digital payment platform, FreeCharge, while Patel is founder and CEO of Avenues India Private Limited, a payment gateway service provider. Later, in May 2016, IAMAI appointed Vijay Shekhar Sharma as chairman of its payments banks group. Meanwhile, Suresh Sethi, business head of Vodafone India, was appointed as VP. IAMAI’s payments banks group was awarded a payments bank licence in 2015 by RBI. In June 2016, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) announced its new leadership. Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel, was appointed as its new chairman. He succeeded Himanshu Kapania, MD, Idea Cellular. Meanwhile, Sunil Sood, MD and CEO, Vodafone India, was appointed vice chairman.
Infrastructure providers
In May 2016, Bimal Dayal formally took over as CEO of Indus Towers from B.S. Shantharaju. Dayal had been serving as COO of Indus Towers since 2010 and was appointed CEO designate in October 2015. He has been succeeded by Tejinder Kalra, who joined Indus from Nokia. Indus Towers also appointed Hemant Kumar Ruia as its new CFO.
In June 2016, Syed Safawi resigned as CEO of Viom Networks, after a term of around four years. Meanwhile, in October 2016, Sandip Das, former MD of RJIL, and B.S. Shantharaju, former CEO of Indus Towers, have joined Sterlite Technologies’ newly formed advisory board.
Vendors
Network and technology
In February 2016, William Zhao was appointed COO of Huawei Technologies’ Indian research and development (R&D) unit. He succeeded Wilson Wang, who took up another leadership role in digital services development management at Huawei, China.
In June 2016, Kalyani Sekarr took over as MD, Verizon Data Services India, the IT and technology arm of Verizon in India. Sekarr succeeds Santosh Bijur and is leading a 6,700-member workforce in Chennai and Hyderabad. During the same month, NEC Corporation appointed Takayuki Inaba as MD of its India operations. He succeeded Koichiro Koide, who now serves as general manager of NEC’s greater China and Asia-Pacific division.
In June 2016, Nokia appointed Sanjay Malik as the head of its India operations. He succeeded Sandeep Girotra, who was appointed as head of Nokia’s Asia-Pacific and Japan market. In the same month, Ramboll appointed Vidya Basarkod as director, engineering centre, India.
In August 2016, Purushottam Kaushik, Cisco’s MD of sales for India and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) region, resigned after working with the company for seven years.
In September 2016, ZTE appointed Sachin Batra as CMO of its India operations. Batra will head both sales and marketing for ZTE India’s smartphone business. In October 2016, Sunil Lalvani stepped down as Qualcomm India president after a stint of around one year. Qualcomm is yet to announce Lalvani’s replacement. Parag Kar, VP of government affairs, will serve as the company’s India head in the interim period.
In November 2016, Juniper Networks appointed Dinesh Verma as MD of its India and SAARC operations. The appointment followed Amarjit Gupta’s exit from this position in August 2016.
Handsets
In February 2016, Vineet Taneja resigned as CEO, Micromax, as the promoters took control over the company’s management. Meanwhile, several new appointments were made at Yu Televentures, a subsidiary of Micromax, over the next few months. Shubhodip Pal was appointed as COO; Bharat Singh Malik as VP, services; Deepak Dahiya as head, sales, south and west regions; and Chandra Kishore as head, sales, north and east regions. Interestingly, most of these new team members have worked with Micromax in the past. During his previous stint with the company, Pal had been instrumental in making Micromax one of the top five smartphone manufacturers in India. He had resigned from Micromax in February 2015. Dahiya and Kishore have been associated with Yu’s parent company, Micromax, since 2007 and 2008 respectively. Malik, too, has had a stint with Micromax in the past. He has also worked with other handset manufacturers including Samsung and Nokia.
Later in 2016, Arvind Gulati, head of customer services, and Ajay Sharma, business head of the mobile phone and tablet divisions at Micromax, resigned from the company. Bharat Malik, who was serving as Yu Televentures’ head of customer services, took over from Gulati, while Sharma was replaced by Praveen Srivastava, who has joined Micromax from Vodafone India.
Meanwhile, Lava International appointed Navin Chawla and Gaurav Nigam as COO and product head, respectively. While Chawla leads the company’s sales and services operations and oversees the retail promotion functions, Nigam heads the product function division.
In May 2016, Panasonic appointed Manish Sharma as president and CEO of its India operations. He was also appointed executive officer of the company’s 24-member team of top officials. In June 2016, Apple promoted Sanjay Kaul to the position of India head. He succeeded Manish Dhir, who resigned from the company in January 2016.
In June 2016, Microsoft India’s head of mobile division, Ajey Mehta, along with 60-70 sales and marketing team members, moved to HMD Global. The latter is a newly created company, through which Nokia-branded phones will re-enter global markets, including India. At HMD, the team led by Mehta will be responsible for reviving the Nokia brand in India. The new portfolio will include feature phones as well as Android smartphones. Meanwhile, LeEco strengthened its leadership team in India by appointing three senior-level executives. Shrinivas Bari was appointed as senior director, R&D; Manish Aggarwal as vice president, marketing communications, for the smart electronics business; and Divya Dixit as director, content marketing business. LeEco later appointed Jaiteerth Patwari as the head of its e-commerce platform, LeMall, in India.
In July 2016, Lava International appointed Rahul Agarwal as chief technology officer and Ankit Pal as design head. During the same month, Ziox Mobiles appointed Deepak Kabu as its CEO and Chiranjib Sarkar as national sales head. Meanwhile, Sanjay Kumar Kalirona resigned as senior general manager and head, mobile, Intex Technologies. Xiaomi appointed Raghu Reddy as the head of online sales in the same month.
In August 2016, Lenovo India appointed Rajesh Thadani as head and executive director of the consumer, online and e-commerce divisions. In November 2016, Intex Technologies appointed Yashpal Soni as CIO. Further, in December 2016, Intex appointed Sumit Sehgal as CMO to lead its brand transformation and to conceptualise marketing initiatives across the various business lines of the company.
