New CIO appointments in India, 2021

With more and more companies undertaking the journey of digital transformation, the role of the CIO has become critical. The increased demand for experienced IT leaders has made the space extremely dynamic. CIO India is here with a regularly updated list of the latest CIO movements across the country. Write to us if you have news to share.

December

Milind Kulkarni joins Yotta as chief technology officer

Yotta Infrastructure has named Milind Kulkarni as its CTO and head of IT operations and engineering. An IT veteran with over 26 years’ experience, he has led IT operations, project planning and designing across IT, ITeS, and IT managed services domains.

At Yotta, Kulkarni will be responsible for spearheading data centre IT operations and engineering. Previously, he led the design, planning, implementation and delivery of IT managed services, cloud and security services, data centre and disaster recovery services at NTT. He has also worked with Reliance Communications, Global Tele-Systems, Mahindra Consulting, and Microtech Software and Consultants.

November

Hemal Savla joins RR Kabel as CIO

Hemal Savla has taken up the post of CIO at RR Kabel, a division of the industrial conglomerate RR Global.

Savla’s most recent position was as head of the global delivery centre for US construction firm Katerra. Before that he was associate VP of IT for Godrej Consumer Products and senior IT manager at Johnson & Johnson Medical and at Philips Electronics India.

He’s an alumnus of the University of Mumbai. 

September

SBI Mutual Fund names Shiju Rawther head of IT

Shiju Rawther has joined SBI Mutual Funds as head of IT. He was previously chief information and technology officer at CARE Ratings. He has 13 years experience in finance IT, with a focus on cybersecurity.

Shiju holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from Bangalore University and a master’s degree in information management from Mumbai University.

Gaurav Sharma becomes group CTO of Poonawalla Fincorp

Poonawalla Fincorp, previously Magma Fincorp, has named Gaurav Sharma as its group CTO. He will lead technology initiatives for the Poonawalla group in its quest to build a world-class digital technology-based platform for financial services.

Gaurav is an alumnus of IIT Roorkee, with over 25 years’ experience in driving transformation across various industry domains.

He was CTO at L&T Financial Services before joining Poonawalla.

Satellite comms provider Skylo hires Jai Menon as CIO

Jai Menon has joined Skylo, a narrow-band satellite communications provider that targets IoT applications, as CIO. He will run the company’s ERP and order management systems, and manage IT support, business and operations support systems, networking and security.

He held IT leadership postitions at IBM and at telcos around the world before returning to India and a CTO role at HT Media. Since then, he has worked in startps and consulting. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi.

August

Jubilant Foodworks hires Ekhlaque Bari as CIO

Ekhlaque Bari, former EVP and chief technology officer at Fullerton India, has joined Jubilant FoodWorks as chief information officer. He will be based in Gurugram, reporting to CEO Pratik Pota, and will have responsibility for all the digital transformation initiatives at Jubilant FoodWorks.

A former CIO100 India winner, Bari has also previously held leadership roles at Max Life Insurance, HT Media, and SBI Card.

Rahul Khona becomes IT head at Nexus Malls

Rahul Khona has been appointed head of information technology at Nexus Malls, the operator of 16 malls with almost 10 million square feet of retail space across India.

He will have responsibility for IT strategy and innovation, and be based in Mumbai.

Khona has more 17 years of experience across retail, telecom and banking. An alumnus of IIMT Bangalore, he previously led IT at McDonalds India, Reliance Brands, and Starbucks India.

Yes Bank appoints Mahesh Ramamoorthy as CIO

Mahesh Ramamoorthy has replaced Anup Purohit as CIO at Yes Bank. Purohit stepped down from the position in June.

In his new role, Ramamoorthy will lead technology and digital transformation for the bank, as well as be responsible for modern technologies such as APIs, AI and machine learning, and business intelligence.

Ramamoorthy has more than 30 years of experience in the BFSI technology space. He was previously senior VP of payments (international) at FIS, where he led the financial technology provider for Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. He has also held leadership positions at Barclays Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Aviva, DCB Bank, IDBI Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank.

Pankaj Khare joins Pine Labs as head of IT

Pine Labs has hired Pankaj Khare as head of information technology. Khare will be based in Noida. The appointment was made in January but announced in August.

Khare was the former CIO at DMI, where he spearheaded the digital transformation effort. Prior to that he was the CIO at GoAir. He has held leadership position at Sterlite Power, IndiGo, and HCL.

July

Capri Global Capital appoints Rahul Agarwal as CTO

Rahul Agarwal has joined Capri Global Capital, a financial company specialising in small business and home loans, as chief technology officer. He will be heading technology functions and digital transformation across the company.

Agarwal has years’ experience in software engineering and technology leadership roles. Most recently, he was group CTO at Aakash Educational Services where he developed capabilities in-house for faster and sustainable growth. He has also held CTO roles at Policy Bazaar and Lava International, and led engineering at IndiaHomes.com and Tyroo Media, and Vriti Infocom.

Aan Chauhan joins Mindtree as CTO

Aan S Chauhan has been named CTO of Mindtree just a couple of weeks after Mindtree acquired another company of which he was CTO, L&T subsidiary NxT Digital Business. He has more than 26 years’ experience in IT, including 14 years at Cognizant where he was also CTO.

Chauhan has built world class technological products for financial services, capital markets, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, e-commerce, retail, and technology sectors. He is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur.

Upstox names Thippesha Dyamappa CTO

Indian investment platform Upstox has appointed a Thippesha Dyamappa as its chief technology officer.

Dyamappa was previously director of software development for international retail at Amazon.com, and his international experience heralds Upstox’s expansion into global markets.

He has over 20 years of software engineering experience in the online retail, transport and travel industries, predominantly in India and the U.S.

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles transforms CIO role

Chulanga Perera has taken on two new roles at Daimler India Commercial Vehicles, as chief transformation officer and head of strategy. He will continue as CIO too, until his replacement is announced.

He will lead a team of around 40 staff in the company’s transformation management office to steer the company’s digital transformation, drive synergies, enhance customer service and scale business offerings.

Akums India appoints Sanjay Verma as group CIO

Sanjay Verma has joined Akums India as group CIO, reporting to managing director Sandeep Jain.

Previously, Verma was CIO at Somany Ceramic, and he has also held leadership positions at JK Lakshmi Cement. In his 20 years’ experience in IT, Verma has led work on security, risk compliance, IoT, RPA, cloud and business continuity planning. He was a recipient of a 2016 CIO100 India award.

Gururaj Rao moves to Aditya Birla Health Insurance

Gururaj Rao has joined Aditya Birla Health Insurance as executive vice-president and chief technology officer. He is a former CIO100 India award winner.

Rao was previously vice-president and CIO at Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services (MMFSL) where he worked for 10 years. At MMFSL he was responsible for IT across all the non-banking financial services business including retail loan and SME corporate loans. He has over 20 years of experience in the BFSI sector and has held leadership positions at ICICI Bank and Birla Sun Life Insurance.

Rahul Bhardwaj returns to Fullerton as CIO

Rahul Bhardwaj has rejoined Fullerton India Credit Co., this time as chief information officer and head of operations and customer service. Based in Mumbai, Bhardwaj will report to chief operating officer Pavan Kaushal.

This is Bhardwaj’s second stint at the financial services company. Over an 11-year span he held a succession of leadership positions there in technology, operations and customer services, playing a key role in the design and implementation of the company’s first full suite of technology applications. In 2017 he left to become a senior vice president at Reliance Payment Services.

Bhardwaj has over 20 years of experience in IT. He is an alumnus of Delhi College of Engineering and holds a postgraduate diploma in business management from IIM Bangalore.

June

Snapdeal appoints Girish Koppad as head of technology

E-commerce company Snapdeal has appointed Girish Koppad as vice president and head of technology. Based in Gurgaon, Koppad will be reporting to Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO. At Snapdeal, Koppad will lead technology engineering and will spearhead development and services for technology infrastructure and data centers.

He was previously senior director of engineering at Samsung Electronics. Koppad has over two decades of experience in product development and management across diverse areas including wireless infrastructure, mobile, and SaaS-based cloud computing platforms. He has held senior management positions at Google, TiVO and Motorola. At Google he led the design, development, and launch of smartphones including Moto X, Moto G and Moto E.

Yotta hires Reliance Entertainment’s Group CIO Sayed Peerzade

Sayed Peerzade, former group CIO at Reliance Entertainment, has joined Yotta Infrastructure as its executive vice president and chief cloud officer. Based in Mumbai, he will report to Yotta CEO Sunil Gupta. He is expected to strengthen the company’s cloud solution portfolio, deliver an enhanced cloud experience for customers, and develop industry-specific solutions available on IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS models.

At Reliance Entertainment, he designed the first private cloud Infrastructure-as-a-service model and hybrid cloud, driving the digital business profitability. He brings in 20 years of experience across sectors including media, broadcasting, data center, telecom, BFSI, and retail. Peerzade is a former CIO100 India award winner, and has also received the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam professional excellence award for Digital Transformation, instituted by the Government of India.

Apollo Tyres appoints Kuldeep Goyal as head of global IT infrastructure and cybersecurity

Apollo Tyres has hired Kuldeep Goyal as its head of global IT Infrastructure and cybersecurity. Based in Bangalore, he will report to Hizmy Hassen, chief digital officer.

Goyal has 16 years’ experience in IT Innovation, activation, operation, project management, and systems management. Prior to joining Apollo Tyres, he spent 13 years at Unilever, where he managed the IT infrastructure of Unilever’s largest shared support center and enterprise and technology solutions outsourcing facility in Bangalore.

Anup Purohit moves from Yes Bank to Wipro

Wipro has named Anup Purohit as its chief information officer, reporting to chief operations officer Sanjeev Singh. Purohit was IDG India’s CIO100 Hall of Fame winner in 2019. He has over 25 years of experience in banking and financial services, including service delivery, portfolio and program management, risk and controls, and information security.

Purohit was previously CIO at Yes Bank, where he spearheaded business technology transformation and digital innovation strategy with a focus on modernising the bank’s technology stack. Prior to that, he held leadership positions at RBL Bank, Barclays Bank, and JP Morgan Chase.

IMGC appoints Sumit Chadha as CIO

Sumit Chadha has joined India Mortgage Guarantee Corp. (IMGC) as chief information officer, where he will spearhead technology initiatives and strengthen competitive capabilities.

Previously, he was head of IT at PNB Housing Finance Ltd., where he led digitization of company’s processes and systems, and before that worked at Nucleus Software Exports and ICICI Bank. He has 20 years’ experience in IT strategy, architecture, implementation and governance, and is a qualified Chartered Accountant with a certification in contemporary business analytics practices from IIM Kolkata.

Nitin Mittal joins Zee Entertainment Enterprises

Zee Entertainment Enterprises has appointed Nitin Mittal as its new president of technology and data, where he will also be responsible for strategic initiatives in artificial intelligence and machine learning. He has been charged with driving the company’s digital transformation agenda.

Along with Amit Goenka, the president of Zee’s digital businesses and platforms, he will also work on enhancing customer experience across ZEE5, the company’s on-demand internet streaming platform.

Vivek Viswanathan joins PayNearby as CTO

Formerly VP of product development at Blue Yonder, Vivek Viswanathan has joined fintech company PayNearby as chief technology officer. He is based in Bangalore. He will work with PayNearby’s executive team to create new offerings for retail partners and customers. He will also work closely with the company’s product, data, and analytics teams to harness the power of technologies like AI and ML.

He has over 20 years’ experience in the technology and software space across fintech and supply chain domains. He was responsible for digital supply chain and omnichannel commerce fulfillment at Blue Yonder. Before that, he was the CTO at Setu, a fintech API platform. He also co-founded social media startup Stillwater in 2016, prior to which he was the VP of engineering at Ezetap.

May

Unilever’s Reema Jain joins Vodafone Idea as CDO

Vodafone Idea has appointed Reema Jain chief digital officer to lead its digital transformation journey. She was previously the director of IT for digital supply chain at Unilever, and has almost 20 years’ experience in IT.

At Unilever Jain was responsible for developing and delivering the digital logistics strategy. She has also led Unilever’s digital integration platform, working on application development and lifecycle management. Prior to that, she worked for 13 years at GE, where she headed the Oracle technology team for GE Appliances’ ERP platform. She will be based in Bangalore.

Edelweiss General Insurance appoints Madhu Malhotra as CTO

Madhu Malhotra has joined Edelweiss General Insurance as chief technology officer. Her responsibilities will include enhancing and transforming the customer experience.

She was most recently vice president of technology at Spectra, leading all aspects of IT including cloud infrastructure, application development and information security.

Before that she worked for 10 years at Airtel, including over three years leading engineering teams at Airtel Payments Bank.

Rajesh Garg joins Yotta Infrastructure as CDO

Rajesh Garg has been appointed executive vice president and chief digital officer at Yotta Infrastructure, where he will report to co-founder and CEO Sunil Gupta. He will be responsible for the growth of the ERP implementation and other SaaS applications.

Garg was previously CEO and group CIO at Trident Group India, where he was responsible for the digital transformation and IT automation, and before that CIO and vice president for digital transformation solutions at Rolta India.

He received IDG India’s CIO100 award in 2019, and has also been a part of the Advisory Group delegation from India to the Ministry of Information and Communications of the Royal Government of Bhutan.

Shashwat Singh joins boAt as CIO

Consumer electronics maker boAt has appointed Shashwat Singh as its chief information officer, reporting directly to CEO Vivek Gambhir.

Singh brings in over 14 years of experience leading digital transformation for supply chain and finance functions at FMCG majors. Before joining boat, he was Kimberly Clark’s supply chain technology lead, and prior to that was the IT lead for supply chain in South Asia at Unilever. He has also held positions at Asian Paints, Infosys and Mindtree.

April 2021

Zee Entertainment Enterprise appoints Vishal Somani as head of enterprise IT

Vishal Somani has joined Zee Entertainment Enterprise as head of enterprise IT and content technology, based in Mumbai.

Somani has over 20 years of experience in the media and broadcasting and BFSI domains wherein he has led several complex transformation mandates and diverse technology operations. Most recently, he spent seven years at Star TV Network where he was senior vice president and CIO, and before that worked long years with Tata AIA Life Insurance and Tata Consultancy Services.

Entero Healthcare appoints Pooraan Jaiswal as CTO

Supply chain startup Entero Healthcare has named Pooraan Jaiswal its chief technology officer. He will report to the COO Prem Sethi.

Formerly CTO at jewellery retailer Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZ), Jaiswal has over 20 years of experience in IT. Before TBZ, he was CTO at clothing retailer Globus for almost three years, and has also previously worked at Ritz Consultant, Rediff and Indiatelevision.

Rakesh Bhardwaj joins Ola as group CIO

Ola has appointed Rakesh Bhardwaj its group chief information officer, based in Bangalore. He was previously the senior vice president and global CIO at Cognizant for four years.

In his new role Bharadwaj will provide strategic direction to Ola’s IT initiatives, covering information systems, tools, security, IT infrastructure and assets across the group’s global operations and businesses as it expands into new areas such as connected manufacturing, intelligent charging infrastructure.

He brings over 30 years of experience in building and managing cutting-edge global IT teams and systems for some of the largest enterprises in the world, including Cognizant, and GE.

Ajay Bharwani signs on with Writer Corp. as group CIO

Realty, relocation and cash management specialist Writer Corp. has appointed Ajay Bharwani as group CIO and head of digital transformation, to lead the modernisation of IT systems used by the company’s 10,000 employees.

Previously, Bharwani served as global head of IT and technical applictions at Lupin, a pharmaceutical company, and before that as executive director for IT advisory services in Africa, India and the Middle East with consulting firm EY.

Annapurna Vishwanathan is the new CIO at Cummins India

Formerly head of digital at Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, Annapurna Vishwanathan has joined Cummins India as CIO.

Vishwanathan’s career as an IT leader started at GE in Fairfield, Connecticut, where she moved into IT project management from her initial role in audit. From there she moved to GE Digital in Bangalore, helping create the company’s India Digital hub then, as a senior director of GE’s product software engineering division, taking responsibility for end-to-end product development for the firm’s digital services practice in India.  Those roles set her up with experience of managing IT security, establishing cash controls, overseeing acquisition integrations, and implementing Oracle sourcing platforms before her move to Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages in 2018. 

March 2021

Ashish Shrivastava joins FSS as head of technology

After working on Punjab’s “One Integrated Government” project, Ashish Shrivastava is moving to the private sector to work on financial inclusion. He has joined payment technology firm FSS as its head of technology. 

In his role as CTO for the Punjab state government, Shrivastava was responsible for implementing the “Digital Punjab Programme” across various departments and e-governance projects. Previously, he held CIO positions at CMS Infosystems and Allied Blenders and Distillers. 

Vistara flies in Vinod Bhat as new chief information officer

Vinod Bhat has joined Vistara as CIO after a 28-year stint at Tata Consultancy Services.

In his last role at TCS, as global business head for UK and Europe operations, Bhat was responsible for strategizing and driving business growth, delivery, CXO-level interactions, and business benefits for TCS customers. He also headed operations for the largest TCS delivery centre, Delhi-NCR.

Saurabh Mittal is the new CTO at Piramal Retail Finance

Piramal Enterprises’ retail finance division has appointed former Medlife CTO Saurabh Mittal as its new chief technology officer.

Mittal has been tasked with leading technology strategy at Piramal Retail Finance, creating a cutting-edge cloud-native tech-stack and building the AI technology to power the lending business. He will also run the team responsible for developing and managing technology for the company’s customer- and partner-facing business platforms.

In his two-decade long career in IT, Mittal has accrued experience in building and scaling innovative consumer products across e-commerce and telecom sectors.

He joined online pharmacy and medical diagnostics major Medlife in 2015 as its chief product officer and quit four years later as its chief technology officer. At Medlife he played an instrumental role in defining, developing, and evolving the company’s product portfolio in addition to enabling business growth from scratch.

Before and after his stint at Medlife, Mittal worked at Amazon India, most recently leading a team that engineered software systems for one of its fulfillment channels.

February 2021

Narendra Agrawal is the new Global CIO of Dabur India

Dabur India has appointed Hindustan Unilever’s former IT head, Narendra Agrawal, as its new global CIO

“Agrawal comes with a vast exposure in successfully leading large scale global transformation projects in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), logistics operation, financial forecasting, and sales and operations planning,” said Dabur India.

Agrawal spent nine years at Hindustan Unilever, India’s largest FMCG firm, where he was responsible for leading end-to-end IT integration following its acquisition of nutrition business Glaxo Smith Kline Consumer Healthcare. He went on to spearhead IT for Unilever’s sales function and to drive digitization for the newly acquired nutrition business.

Among his accomplishments at Unilever, Agrawal was responsible for rewiring sales and operations planning, financial performance management, employee experience and go-to-market deployment. In addition to driving projects from a strategy stage to benefits realization, he has built expertise in service management and vendor management during his 13 years of IT experience.

A University of Mumbai and IIM-Indore alumnus, Agrawal started his IT career at Missouri-based software and services firm Amdocs. He then moved to Capgemini as a consultant in 2008 before joining Hindustan Unilever in 2012.

Adani Power names Nitin Rohilla CIO

Nitin Rohilla has joined Adani Power as its CIO. He was previously the vice president of IT at Adani Electricity, another company within the same group, for over two years. Previously based out of Mumbai, Rohilla has now moved to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to take up his new role. Rohilla will report directly to Anil Sardana, managing director at Adani Power.

Rohilla said, “As CIO of Adani Power, my responsibilities will be to make IT as a partner in business where IT should be considered as first port of call for any business decision.

“I believe that IT initiatives should drive business value,” he said, adding that he will focus on improved and effective processes to bring consistency and standardisation.
Rohilla has 30 years’ experience in IT management, a great deal of it involving SAP systems, and has worked at companies including Pidilite Industries, Azure Power, Tata Power, Cairn Energy, BSES Delhi, and Tata Chemicals.

Anil Menon joins Lulu Group India as head of IT

Lulu Group India has appointed Anil Menon as its head of IT. Menon will be based in Kochi. He was formerly the general manager for IT innovation at Tata Starbucks.

In his new role, Menon will be responsible for strengthening the digital operations at Lulu to support the company’s big expansion plan for India, focusing on customer experience and supply chain productivity. Menon will also be responsible for creating an agile ecosystem to support innovation and implement new age technologies to accelerate the growth across all channels.

Prior to Tata Starbucks, Menon worked with companies including Trent Hypermarket and Cybage Software. He has over 18 years of experience in IT and retail.

Tejas Shah leaves Axis Finance for SVKM

Tejas Shah has been appointed deputy director of IT at Shri Vile Parle Kelavani Mandal (SVKM). SVKM is an educational institute and a public charitable trust registered under the Societies Registration Act and Bombay Public Trust Act.

His previous role was as the head of IT Infrastructure at Axis Finance, where he was responsible for overall planning, organizing, and execution of all IT functions.

At SVKM he will be responsible for managing pan-India IT infrastructure including the network, applications, servers, end-user support team and web portal support.

Shah is an experienced IT leader skilled in IT infrastructure management, project coordination, identity and access management (IAM), IT service delivery, and budgeting and information security.

He has previously worked for HDFC Bank, Sify Technologies and Wipro.

January 2021

Fabindia Overseas appoints Kunal Mehta as its Group CTO

Kunal Mehta joins retail brand Fabindia Overseas as its group chief technology officer. Mehta brings in 20 years of experience, 16 of which he spent in retail and the manufacturing sector where his primary responsibilities were enterprise IT operations and IT strategy.

Mehta will be based in New Delhi for his new role at Fabindia, where he will be responsible for defining the IT strategy roadmap and driving IT transformation through business. His main responsibility will be to build a robust digital backbone to innovate and accelerate business growth across all channels.

He will be working closely with the top management at Fabindia to ensure improved efficiency and productivity, to improve supply chain systems and customer experience, and to implement new technologies to ready the brand for future growth.

In his previous role, Mehta was the head of IT at Raymond Ltd. Prior to that, he was with companies including Trent Hypermarket, Reliance Retail, Johnson & Johnson, and Nilkamal.

Pradipt Kapoor named CIO of Bharti Airtel

Pradipt Kapoor is taking over from Harmeen Mehta as CIO of Bharti Airtel.

In his last role, Kapoor was VP and global head of products and solutions engineering at shipping and logistics major Maersk.

“I am super excited to be joining Airtel. It’s an iconic brand and I love the fact customer centricity and customer obsession is in the core DNA of the organization,” Kapoor told CIO India.

As part of its digital drive, the Indian telecom giant has been striving to develop a broad array of digital services and platforms.

On his role in helping the company meet its digital agenda, Kapoor said “I am looking forward to helping realise the Airtel digital vision—to help build products, platforms and services which make sure that customers get the best possible service experience.”

Bhavesh Gandhi joins Aarti Industries as chief digital and information officer

Bhavesh Gandhi has been appointed as chief digital and information officer at chemical and pharmaceutical major Aarti Industries.

The company has 16 chemical manufacturing sites from which it serves nearly 150 global and 500 local companies.

Gandhi was previously CIO of Piramal Enterprises’ pharma division, where he worked for five years.

Harmit Singh Malhotra named CTO at Enterr10 Television

Harmit Singh Malhotra has joined media and entertainment major Enterr10 Television as chief technology officer.

Before that, he was general manager for IT and IS at Republic World, where he was responsible for managing the entire broadcast and corporate IT infrastructure, in addition to evaluating new technologies and formulating IT strategy. He played a key role in IT business process design and solution identification. Malhotra was also responsible for ensuring compliance and defining IT security and operating policies.

Malhotra has extensive experience in the broadcast media industry, having worked at firms like Network 18, Star TV, CNBC-TV18.

Chaitanya Wagh appointed CTO (India) at Scotiabank

Former Group CTO at JM Financial, Chaitanya Wagh has joined Canadian multinational banking and financial services company Scotiabank as Chief Technology Officer (India).

Wagh has over 20 years of experience in managing technology for investment banking, equity trading, asset management, wealth management, retail trading, and fixed income businesses.

In his previous role, Wagh was the group CTO of JM Financial, where he worked for over 12 years. His IT career in the BFSI sector started with DSP Merrill Lynch. He then moved to JP Morgan Stanley Securities, following which he served as director of information technology at UBS Securities.

Over the years, Wagh accrued expertise in aligning his organization’s technology roadmap with business strategies and played key leadership roles in solution planning and project management.

November 2020

Shiju Rawther joins CARE Ratings as CITO

Credit rating agency CARE Ratings has named Shiju Rawther its new chief information and technology officer, tasked with spearheading the complete IT function including technology strategies and enterprise-wide IT transformation.

Previously, Rawther was CIO at Poonawalla Finance, and before that he played a key role in driving technology transformation at financial majors such as IIFL Finance, TransUnion CIBIL, and Fullerton India Credit Company. He is credited with setting up the complete IT infrastructure, application deployment, and security operations at Gateway Terminals India and Fullerton India, including building security operations centers (SOCs) from scratch at both companies.

Ramesh Lakshminarayanan appointed CIO at HDFC Bank

HDFC Bank has appointed Ramesh Lakshminarayanan as its new CIO. He will serve as group head of IT, spearheading the company’s technology transformation.

In addition to defining HDFC’s technology strategy, Lakshminarayanan has been tasked with strengthening the company’s foundational technology, enhancing its digital capabilities and harnessing the latest in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

In his previous role, Lakshminarayanan served as chief technology and information officer at Credit Rating Information Services of India Ltd. (CRISIL). A veteran technology leader in the BFSI space, he has worked at banking majors such as Citibank India, ABN AMRO Bank, Citigroup and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

October 2020

Piramal Glass names Sudip Mazumder global chief digital and information officer 

Sudip Mazumder has joined Piramal Glass as global chief digital and information officer. He will report to Samit Datta, global chief supply chain and technology officer.

Mazumder’s most recent role was as engineering and construction digital head and general manager at L&T Group. He has previously worked with companies including RPG Group, Cognizant, Barclays, AstraZeneca, Lloyds, and TCS.

At Piramal Glass, he will be responsible for reinforcing digital transformation and also lead the company’s Digital 2.0 initiative. This includes setting up an advanced analytics technology stack and building a dedicated team to run the digital center of excellence and academy through which business use cases will be driven using AI, ML, and deep learning.

Former Flipkart executive Giridhar Yasa joins Lendingkart as CTO

Fintech player Lendingkart has appointed former Flipkart technology leader Giridhar Yasa as its chief technology officer. He will be responsible for reducing onboarding times and configuring workflows on the company’s platforms for customers, channel partners, and co-lending partners.

He has over 20 years of experience across diverse domains such as cloud architectures, large scale distributed systems, virtualization, systems and storage software, and e-commerce and consumer internet systems. 

Puneet Kaur Kohli joins Universal Sompo General Insurance Co. as CTO

Universal Sompo General Insurance Co has appointed Puneet Kaur Kohli as its chief technology officer. In her 25 years of IT leadership experience, Kohli has worked across geographies for brands including Motorola, Reliance, Duncans, Bharti Airtel, and Motricity (AT&T).

Prior to joining Universal Sompo General Insurance, she was the CTO and CIO at Manappuram Finance. Her expertise includes IT strategy, project management, network and information security, data privacy, regulatory adherence and governance, and disaster recovery planning.

Mohit Kapoor joins Mahindra Group as EVP & Group CTO

Mahindra Group has appointed Mohit Kapoor as executive vice-president and group chief technology officer. In this new role, he will be responsible for creating new business models and transforming customer experience across the group’s diverse set of companies.

Prior to joining Mahindra Group, Kapoor was at DBS Bank, where he set up the Asia Hub at Hyderabad, the bank’s technology development center. Kapoor has spearheaded technology and operations roles for over 29 years, the last 17 years in the BFSI sector.

September 2020

George Fanthome joins Bangalore International Airport Limited as CIO

George Fanthome, the former group CIO at GMR, has joined BIAL as its CIO. A seasoned IT veteran, Fanthome has over 15 years of experience across organizations including mining giant Vedanta Limited, New-Delhi based infrastructure company GMR, telecom player Bharti Airtel International, and IT services giant Genpact, among others.

His expertise includes enterprise wide IT transformation, IT policy and procedure development, strategic planning, digital business transformation, operations and software development.

Shuvankar Pramanick joins Columbia Asia Hospitals as Chief Information Officer

Columbia Asia Hospitals has appointed Shuvankar Pramanick as its CIO. With over two decades of experience, Shuvankar is a healthcare IT veteran, who has driven digital transformation strategy projects using AI, process automation, and innovative IT in the healthcare industry.

Prior to joining Columbia Asia Hospitals, he spearheaded IT at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi as CIO.

His other stints include IT leadership roles at Paras Healthcare, Asian Institute of Medical Sciences, Action Construction Equipments, Fortis Healthcare, among others.

July 2020

Group Head-IT & CIO Munish Mittal leaves HDFC Bank

Munish Mittal, group head of IT and chief Information officer at HDFC Bank, is leaving the organization to pursue higher studies, the bank has announced. Mittal joined the private lender in 1996 as IT Manager. In his 24 years at HDFC, he spearheaded various roles, including managing the IT strategy of the bank and its associated companies, HDFC Securities and HDB Financial Services. 

A Shiju Rawther joins Poonawalla Finance as CIO

A Shiju Rawther has been appointed as the CIO at Poonawalla Finance. In his new role, Shiju will spearhead IT function, strategies, and designing the digital roadmap for the organization, along with the plan, build, run, secure and analytics function of the organization. In his previous role, he was the executive vice-president for technology at IIFL Finance. 

He has over two decades of experience in driving digital transformation, innovation, and analytics in organizations. He has expertise in setting up complete technology systems including applications, IT infrastructure, and building information security operations and process from scratch for startup MNCs in India. He holds an Engineering Degree in Computer Science & Engineering and Management Degree in Information Technology. 

June 2020

Manish Shetty joins Diageo as CIO

One of India’s leading beverage alcohol companies, Diageo, has appointed Manish Shetty, former director of IT at Tata Consumer Products, as its CIO. He will be based in Bangalore, and report to the CFO, Sanjeev Churiwala. 

Shetty has over two decades of global experience in business and technology transformation in various industries including FMCG, pharma, financial services, and technology. At Diageo India, he will support the organization in its digital journey and will focus on leveraging IT as a strategic partner to drive business growth. 

Prior to spearheading IT at Tata Consumer Products, he was the CIO – South Asia at Sanofi India. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Bangalore University and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, USA. 

Amit Waghmare appointed CIO at DB Corp

The former head of information technology at Page Industries, Amit Waghmare has been appointed as the CIO at newspaper giant DB Corp (Danik Bhaskar Group). He has over 17 years of industry experience in sectors such as media, power, textile, pharma, real estate, among others. His other stints include technology leadership roles at VIP Industries, Inorbit Malls India, and Encore Healthcare.

May 2020

Gaurav Kataria joins Sai Life Sciences as chief digital and information officer

Gaurav Kataria has been appointed the chief digital and information officer at Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization—Sai Life Sciences. He will be responsible for leading the digital transformation agenda in line with Sai’s business objectives. In this role, he will oversee digitization programs, IT infrastructure, and IT security for Sai globally.

Kataria has over 20 years of experience across digital transformation, technology, consulting, marketing, and strategy. He is an engineer with a masters degree from BITS, Pilani, and executive business education from Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA.

Bhavesh Lakhani joins IndusInd Bank as chief technology officer

The former CTO at SBI Mutual Fund, Bhavesh Lakhani has joined IndusInd Bank as its chief technology officer. A seasoned IT professional, he has over 20 years of industry experience in banking and financial services organizations. His areas of expertise include business intelligence and data monetization, digital strategy and transformation, cloud migration, DevOps and SecOps, mergers, acquisitions and integration, workforce management, and automation, etc.

His previous stints include CTO at DSP BlackRock Mutual Fund, Director, Technology Services at Altisource, Senior VP – Technology & Services at HSBC, VP-IT Delivery, CIB at Wachovia Bank, among others.

April 2020

Vipul Anand joins Praxis Advisory Network as domain leader for hitech IT and tech practice

Vipul Anand, ex-CIO at Hindware, has joined Praxis Advisory Network as the domain leader for its hitech IT and tech practice. Prior to Hindware, he spearheaded IT across organizations including Jindal Steel & Power, Aditya Birla Group, Honda Siel Power Products, Hughes, and ModiCorp in India and abroad.

March 2020

Kapil Pal joins United Breweries as head of IT

Kapil Pal has joined United Breweries (UB) as head of IT. Based in Bangalore, he has taken over the role of Ramakrishnan Sudarshanam, who retired from the company last December. Pal was previously with LafargeHolcim, where he had recently moved to a global role. He will be reporting to UB’s group CFO, Berend Odink. Pal brings in over 27 years of experience with a thorough understanding of the FMCG domain.

Ashok Jade joins Spark Minda as group chief information and technology officer

Ashok Jade, former CIO at Shalimar Paints has been appointed as group CITO at Spark Minda. Prior to that he was the head of IT at Videocon Industries. He has over 20 years of experience in strategic and IT leadership, with expertise in business growth, IT cost and budget, change management, SAP, CRM, IoT, SMAC, RPA, among others. 

Irshad Saifi joins SAMCO as CIO and CDO

Irshad Saifi has joined one of India’s leading law firms, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAMCO) as CIO and CDO. In this role, he will be based in New Delhi. 

Prior to this, Saifi was at Havells for three years where he spearheaded multiple transformations. At SAMCO, he will essentially hold the combined role of a CIO and CDO. 

Abhishek Agarwal joins EESL as head of IT

Abhishek Agarwal has joined Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) as head of information technology and chief general manager. EESL is a joint venture under India’s Ministry of Power.

Before this, Agarwal was senior VP and CIO for Balmer Lawrie & Co.

An IT veteran with expertise in defining IT policy, cybersecurity and digitalization strategy of organizations, Agarwal has executed transformation initiatives across auto, telecom, travel, and defence. His other stints include head of IT at Vodafone India, program director at Wipro, senior manager at Bharti Airtel, manager at Maruti Suzuki India, scientist at Defence R & D Organization, Ministry of Defence & Ashok Leyland Information Technology. 

Yotta Infrastructure appoints Kamal Goel as EVP-IT and chief evangelist

Kamal Goel has joined Yotta Infrastructure as the executive vice-president for IT and chief evangelist. Prior to this, he was the SVP and group head of IT at Anand Rathi. Goel’s expertise includes IT infrastructure management, networking and security management, cloud computing and datacenter management.

February 2020

Sony Pictures Networks India appoints Raj Mohan Srinivasan as CIO

Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN), has appointed Raj Mohan Srinivasan as CIO for the network. Prior to joining the network, Raj Mohan was in an entrepreneurial role. With over three decades of global experience across global tech organizations and an entrepreneurial venture, Raj Mohan’s expertise lies in Business and IT Strategy, leading business transformation, strategic execution with a deep market focus and financial acumen.

January 2020

Pankaj Pandey joins SBI General Insurance as Head-IT

An IT veteran with over two decades of experience in the BFSI sector, Pankaj Pandey joined SBI General Insurance as head of IT. Prior to this, he was the senior vice-president and head of IT at IDBI Federal Life Insurance. He has also served in IT leadership roles at Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance, Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance, and LIC. 

December 2019

BARC India appoints Mahendra K Upadhyay as CIO

Mahendra K Upadhyay has joined the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India as CIO. He has over 18 years of experience in sectors such as telecom, banking, retail, and media, and advertising. Prior to joining BARC India, he was the Head of Data & Technology, India at Mindshare. His previous roles include stints at Ericsson, SAS Institute, Reliance Retail.

Arindam Sengupta joins Dixcy Textiles as CIO

An IT leader with over 18 years of experience, Arindam Sengupta has joined Dixcy Textiles as CIO. His previous stints include leadership roles at industry giants such as HUL, GE Healthcare, and Wipro.

November 2019

Piyush Kumar Chowhan joins Lulu Group International as Group CIO

Retail giant Lulu Group International appointed Piyush Kumar Chowhan as group CIO. With over two decades of industry experience, Chowhan’s expertise includes business analytics, retail analytics, retail technology solutions. Earlier, he was the senior vice president and chief information officer at Arvind Lifestyle Brands.

Yotta Appoints Manish Israni as head of IT operations and CIO 

Yotta Infrastructure has appointed industry veteran Manish Israni as CIO and head of IT operations and engineering. Manish has over 25 years of experience in IT Infrastructure and hyperscale data centers for ITES, BFSI and telecom industries. In his last assignment with Reliance Jio Infocomm, he led and managed core IT infrastructure, application design and deployment for Jio’s data centers across India.

Spicejet appoints Ashish Vikram as chief technology and innovation officer 

Ashish Vikram has joined Spicejet as chief technology and innovation officer.
A software industry veteran, Ashish’s previous stints were at Yahoo, Bangalore, and Flipkart as VP Engineering leading their big data and ads engineering teams. Prior to joining Spicejet he co-founded VideoKen, a social video-based learning platform powered by video indexing technology.

Hero Cycles appoints Shaveta Wadhera as group chief digital officer

A seasoned professional with a rich experience in digital transformation for financial services and manufacturing organizations, Shaveta has joined Hero Cycles as group chief digital officer. Prior to joining Hero Cycles, Shaveta was the CIO at GE Transportation-Indian Railways JV.

October 2019

Anand Ruhela appointed IT head at Manipal Global Group

Anand Ruhela has been appointed as head of IT at healthcare and education major Manipal Global Group. In his previous role, Ruhela was head of IT at food and agro-processing giant Kwality.

September 2019

Usha International appoints Sachin Gupta chief information and innovation officer

IT industry veteran Sachin Gupta has been appointed president and chief information and innovation officer at Usha International. Prior to joining Usha International, Gupta was the executive vice president, chief information and digital officer at Havells India. 

Evercare Group appoints Sumit Puri as Group CTO 

Sumit Puri has become group chief technology officer of Evercare Group. He has over 24 years of work experience in technology and operations in leading corporations in Asia. Prior to joining Evercare Group, he was the CIO at Max Healthcare, where he was responsible for driving enterprise digital strategy, new business operating models.

Prashant Singh joins Max Healthcare as Director and CIO

Prashant Singh is now a director and CIO of Max Healthcare. He has 23 years of experience in healthcare IT, computer education, project management, software development, and system administration. Prior to joining Max Healthcare, he was the CIO at Radiant Life Care. His other stints include IT leadership roles at BLK Super Speciality Hospital, Paras Hospitals, and Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute. 

Cholamandalam MS General Insurance names Anubhav Rajput CIO

Anubhav Rajput has been named CIO and head of digital and operations at Cholamandalam MS General Insurance. A seasoned strategy consultant, he has vast experience in conceptualizing, planning and implementing growth-oriented strategic initiatives specifically in the areas of business and IT transformation. Prior to joining Cholamandalam General Insurance, he was the vice president and head of IT at Max Bupa.

August 2019

Archie Jackson to head IT team at Incedo

After his three-year stint at Genpact as AVP – Technology/Information Security, Archie Jackson has joined Incedo to head its IT team. With a rich industry experience of over 18 years, Jackson’s expertise includes infrastructure design, implementation, and operations with strong service management, leadership, and digital transformational skills. Jackson has previously worked with companies like SopraSteria India, Capgemini, DXC Technology and HP.

July 2019

The Indian Express appoints Amardeep Vishwakarma as CTO

Vishwakarma has joined news portal The Indian Express as its new CTO. Previously, he has driven tech transformation at Shine.com, Info Edge India, Shareaholic, and Naukri.com.

April 2019

M Sivasubramanian joins VA Tech Wabag as CIO

After serving more than 13 years at L&T Group, and the last five years at L&T IDPL, M Sivasubramanian has moved to VA Tech Wabag as its CIO.

March 2019

Alembic Pharmaceuticals appoints Jitendra Mishra as its new VP-CIO

Alembic Pharmaceuticals recently appointed Jitendra Mishra as VP-CIO. Mishra brings more than 23 years of technology experience. Mishra will provide executive leadership to build and support Information Technology and business processes alignment.

Sharat M Airani joins Bluechink as Chief Digital Officer

Bluechink Technologies has appointed Sharat M Airani has its new chief digital officer. Airani will be directly reporting to the CEO and the board. He will be responsible for all digital activities across APAC and EU regions.

Rajesh Garg joins Trident as CXO-IT

Rajesh Garg has joined Trident as CXO-IT. At Trident, Garg will be responsible for the IT of the entire group and will drive the company through industrial automation 4.0 under the dynamic leadership of its founder-chairman Rajinder Gupta (RG), a first-generation entrepreneur.

February 2019

Paytm Money appoints Suresh Vasudevan as its CTO

Paytm Money announced the appointment of Suresh Vasudevan as its chief technology officer. He will be leading the overall engineering and technology functions at Paytm Money and will be based out of Bengaluru. Vasudevan comes with over 20 years of experience in product development for various startups and enterprise product companies across payments, e-commerce and fintech domains.

Rockman Industries appoints Manzar Abbas as CIO

Rockman Industries India appointed Manzar Abbas as its CIO in February 2019. He has an overall 19 years of IT experience and has handled large scale IT projects, systems and datacenters. Prior to this assignment, Manzar Abbas was with Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable as GM – IT and has worked with other organizations like Primus Telecommunications, Thomson Digital – CIO, Express Print Publishers LLC., UAE.

The Great Eastern Shipping Co. appoints Pavan Tsunduru as CIO 

Pavan Tsunduru has joined The Great Eastern Shipping Co. as CIO. His expertise includes technology-enabled business transformation, digital, IoT technology solutions, innovation, cybersecurity, blockchain, AI and ML, automation, analytics, IT strategy and IT outsourcing, smart port, cloud, and mobility solutions. He was previously the CIO at Adani Ports and SEZ. He has a total experience of more than two decades in the industry. 

Glory Nelson joins WOW Airlines as Head Digital 

Glory Nelson has joined WOW Airlines as Head of Digital. Nelson was earlier the senior VP-IT at Spicejet for over two years.

January 2019

Pidilite Industries appoints Mayur Danait as CIO 

Mayur Danait has joined Pidilite Industries as CIO. He was previously CIO at Lupin, where he had a nine-year-long stint. 

Bajaj Allianz Insurance appoints Gautam Datta as CITO

Goutam Datta has joined Bajaj Allianz Insurance as the chief information and technology officer (CITO) in November last year. Datta heads the technology and innovation team and is a part of the companies management committee.

Shiv Kumar Bhasin joins National Stock Exchange as chief technology and operations Officer

Shiv Kumar Bhasin was appointed the chief technology and operations officer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on January 2, 2019. Bhasin will be reporting directly to Vikram Limaye, managing director and CEO of NSE. He was previously the global CTO at State Bank of India.