The past year has witnessed considerable churn in the top management of telecom businesses operating in India. As operational and financial challenges continued to plague the sector, many operators and vendors undertook organisational restructuring, which resulted in several new people assuming bigger roles in the industry and others exiting the sector. tele.net takes stock of key industry movements during 2013…

Government bodies

In May 2013, M.F. Farooqui took charge as telecom secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), replacing Rentala Chandrashekhar. Farooqui will serve a 15-month term before his retirement in June 2014. In the past, Farooqui has served as secretary, Department of Heavy Industries, and as special secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Meanwhile, in March 2013, P.K. Rastogi, the only member serving on the board of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), retired. With no bench member/chairperson to preside over issues, the tribunal was rendered non-functional for some time. In April 2013, Kuldip Singh joined TDSAT as a member. Singh is an industry veteran and has served on the board of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) for more than eight years, besides serving as the operator’s chairman and managing director for two years.

Soon after his appointment, retired Supreme Court judge Justice Aftab Alam was appointed chairman of the tribunal in June 2013. He retired from the Supreme Court in April 2013. TDSAT has been functioning without a head since Justice S.B. Sinha retired in November 2012. While Justice Cyriac Joseph was appointed the new chairman of TDSAT in end-2012, he did not join the tribunal.

Telecom operators

Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel witnessed a large number of appointments and exits during 2013. The year saw some key executives exiting the company after serving for several years. In February 2013, Sanjay Kapoor resigned as Bharti Airtel’s chief executive officer (CEO), India and South Asia region. During the same month, Shankar Halder, chief of network operations, resigned after a 10-year stint with the company to launch his own technology consultancy firm. In March 2013, Bharat Bambawale resigned as brand director. Further, Milan Rao, CEO of Airtel’s enterprise business, and Krish Shankar, executive director, human resources, quit the company.

Meanwhile, Gopal Vittal took charge as CEO of Airtel’s operations in March 2013 while Manoj Kohli took over as managing director (MD). Kohli has been heading Airtel’s international operations since 2010. Kohli is expected to relocate to India in January 2014, following which Christian de Faria will assume the position of head of Airtel’s Africa operations.

In mid-2013, Bharti Airtel also appointed CEOs for some circles. Ramesh Menon was appointed CEO for the Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh circles while Ashok Ganapathy was appointed CEO for Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat. Srinivasan Gopalan was appointed director of the consumer business, a newly created role, to oversee brand management, marketing and customer service practices. Gopalan joined Airtel from Vodafone UK, where he served as head of the consumer business. Further, Bharti Airtel appointed Neil Pollock as head of the company’s recently created data centre subsidiary, Nxtra Data Limited. Prior to this, Pollock headed the integrated managed solutions and services business.

Uninor

The company announced the appointment of several top executives. In February 2013, Uninor appointed Rajeev Sethi chief marketing officer (CMO). Prior to his new role, Sethi was Uninor’s business head for the Uttar Pradesh (East) circle. In March 2013, Sharad Mehrotra, Uninor’s chief sales officer, moved to a bigger role at Telenor.

In June 2013, Uninor appointed Yogesh Malik as CEO. He took charge from Sigve Brekke, who was appointed head of the Telenor Group’s Asian operations. Malik had joined Uninor in 2011 as chief operating officer (COO) and was involved in developing an efficient operating model, which helped the company in providing affordable services in India. He also played an important role in establishing the Uninor brand. However, he resigned in November 2013. For the time being, Brekke has taken over as Uninor’s acting CEO.

Aircel

In March 2013, Jitendra Rahi, chief of Aircel’s all-India sales and distribution, resigned from the company. He had been associated with Aircel since 2008. In the past, Rahi had served as COO at Vodafone Essar, and vice-president (VP), sales and business development, Bharti Airtel. Further, it was recently reported that Aircel may elevate Kaizad Heerjee from the position of COO to CEO. Former CEO Sandip Das left about eight months ago to join Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited. Heerjee joined Aircel in August 2012. The operator has reportedly sought security clearance from DoT for Heerjee’s appointment as he holds Singapore citizenship.

Others

In May 2013, Dmitry Shukov replaced Vsevolod Rozanov as president and CEO at Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited (SSTL). His appointment became effective from June 1, 2013. Shukov was previously CEO at MTS Turkmenistan and MTS Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, Rozanov, who has been heading SSTL’s operations since 2008, moved to a senior position with the parent company. During the same month, Vodafone India’s director for external affairs, Manu Kapoor, resigned from the company. He was replaced by Rohit Adya, who served as operations director for the western region.

In June 2013, Deepak Gulati resigned as executive president of Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL). Gulati joined TATA DOCOMO in 2008 and played a key role in establishing the company’s mobility business. In the past, he has worked as the regional CEO of Bharti Airtel and was responsible for launching the company’s operations in three regions across the country. During the same month, V. Umashankar, joint secretary, telecom, DoT, joined the MTNL board as government director. He replaced Malay Shrivastava.

In November 2013, Reliance Communications (RCOM) appointed Deepak Khanna as CEO, India enterprise business. He is expected to drive revenue and profitability growth of RCOM’s enterprise business over the next five years. Prior to this, Khanna worked in various senior positions at Bharti Airtel and Tulip Telecom.

Tower infrastructure providers

In February 2013, Bharti Infratel appointed Sunil Khurana as COO. Following this, Khurana became a member of Bharti Infratel’s core executive council team. In December 2013, Sairam Prasad resigned as chief technology officer, Bharti Infratel, to join the Malaysia-based Axiata Group as director, technical (towers).  He had been associated with Bharti Infratel since 2009 and played a key role in telecom passive network design, new technology deployment of the network build-out planning, green energy initiatives and energy management, quality assurance and management, technical services, and operations and maintenance. Meanwhile, Viom Networks, a joint venture of TTSL and SREI Infrastructure, appointed Sudhir Prasad and Vivek Garg as COO and chief relationship officer respectively in 2013.

Equipment vendors

Earlier in the year, ZTE restructured its leadership team in India. Cui Liangjun, CEO of the company’s Indian operations for the past three years, was relocated to ZTE’s headquarters in China. He was replaced by Xu Dejun, who has been associated with ZTE since 2001. In February 2013, Jeff White replaced Naresh Wadhwa as Cisco’s president and country manager for India and the SAARC region. Prior to his appointment, White was serving as VP of Cisco’s service provider business in Asia Pacific, Japan and China.

Meanwhile, in March 2013, Ericsson announced the appointment of Chris Houghton as head of region, India. He succeeded Fredrik Jejdling, who has assumed the role of head of region, Sub-Saharan Africa. In the same month, Vineet Taneja was appointed Samsung India’s country head for the mobile and digital imaging business. He joined Samsung from Bharti Airtel where he was serving as operations director for the company’s South India and Sri Lankan operations. In April 2013, Sunil Dutt, MD of BlackBerry’s Indian operations, quit the company. Rick Costanzo, executive VP for global sales, took charge for a short duration and in May 2013, Sunil Lalvani joined BlackBerry India as MD.

Huawei appointed Jiangqingsong Daniel as head of its Indian operations in June 2013. Prior to his new role, Daniel was VP of the company’s Indian business. He replaced Eric Yu, who is now managing the company’s business in Germany. The company also appointed Suresh Reddy as VP of its enterprise business group. The appointment is part of the company’s plans to enhance its focus on its enterprise business.

NEC India appointed Partho Dasgupta as MD in June 2013. In the same month, Sudhin Mathur was appointed director of Lenovo India’s smartphone business. Prior to joining Lenovo, Mathur was business head of LG India’s mobile phone business.

Some exits were witnessed in the vendor space, the key one being the resignation of Deepak Mehrotra as CEO of Micromax in November 2013. Meanwhile, D. Shivakumar, Nokia’s head of operations for India, West Asia and Africa, resigned from the company. He had been associated with Nokia for the past eight years and played a key role in strengthening the brand’s position in the Indian market. Until 2011, he was serving as MD, India region; later he moved to a global role as VP for emerging markets. In another move, A. Sethuraman resigned as executive director of Huawei Technologies. He had joined Huawei in 2009 as head of technical sales for the company’s products and solutions unit in India.

Industry associations

In July 2013, the members of the Cellular Operators Association of India unanimously re-elected Idea Cellular’s MD Himanshu Kapania and Vodafone India’s MD and CEO Marten Pieters as chairman and vice-chairman respectively for 2013-14.

Others

In February 2013, Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited appointed Jagdish Kumar as MD and CEO. Kumar succeeded K. Jayaraman, who now serves as vice-chairman of the company’s board of directors. In March 2013, One97 Communications appointed Raj Ahuja as its chief financial officer (CFO). Ahuja joined One97 from Star India, where he was serving as executive VP, finance. In June 2013, C.R. Rao took over as COO of Sify Technologies. Prior to this, he was serving as the company’s VP, strategy, administration and human resource.

OnMobile Global Limited appointed Sanjay Bhambri as chief commercial officer. Prior to this, he was serving as OnMobile Global’s regional VP, emerging markets. Meanwhile, in November 2013, P. Allainguillaume was appointed head of Mahindra Comviva’s global unit. Ambar Sur, who was earlier heading the company’s global market unit, moved to a new role in the innovation and strategic business division. Recently, Tata Communications appointed Tri Pham as chief

strategy officer. Pham is based in Singapore and is responsible for strategy formulation and execution, with a focus on the company’s entry into new markets and mergers and acquisitions.

Further, John Samuel resigned as president, India, Verizon Business. He had joined the company in 2007. He was replaced by Harsh Marwah, who served as country sales head at BT India before joining Verizon India as country head.

Intelliverse Telecom India, a cloud-based communications service provider, appointed V.R. Kirubakaran as country manager. Meanwhile, Tech Mahindra appointed Milind Kulkarni and Manoj Bhat as CFO and deputy CFO respectively. Spice Global appointed Ozi Amanat as chief investment officer. Wipro Technologies appointed Puneet Chandra, VP, corporate business services, Wipro BPO, as CMO for its IT business. Chandra replaced Suchira Iyer, who was reporting to T.K. Kurien, CEO of Wipro’s IT business. Further, Hrishi Parthasarathy joined Avaya as director, channels and strategic partners, India and SAARC.

Meanwhile, Santhosh Kumar was appointed as MD of Texas Instruments India. He succeeded Bobby Mitra, who moved to a global position as worldwide director for Texas Instruments’ industrial systems business, and relocated to the US. Mitra had joined Texas Instruments in 1986 and had been serving as MD of the company’s Indian operations since 2001. Also, Kavveri Telecom Products Limited appointed Nicholas Lourdnathan as president, research and development (R&D). Prior to this, Lourdnathan was director in Kavveri’s R&D department. Anil Bhansali was appointed MD of Microsoft India (R&D) Private Limited as well as leader of the Microsoft India Development Center. Meanwhile, ZyXEL Communications, a broadband networking firm, appointed Madhukar Swayambhu as sales head for its operations in India and the SAARC region.