New CIO appointments in India, 2022

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.

April 2022

Gopal Sharma named as Microland’s CIO

Indian IT firm Microland has promoted Gopal Sharma to CIO. Sharma joined Microland in 2018 as the vice president of digital applications. In his new role, based in Bangalore, he will focus on reimagining enterprise-wide business processes and technologies to transform Microland into an agile organization.

Sharma has over 25 years of experience: Prior to joining Microland, he was the managing director of technology at Accenture and helped clients align application portfolio strategy with their long-term technology strategy.

March 2022

Saurabh Saxena joins PDS as group CIO

Manufacturing and supply chain platform PDS has appointed of Saurabh Saxena as group chief information officer. Saxena was previously the head of analytics, strategy, insights, and operations for IBM Cloud, where he worked for the last 10 years.

Saxena has over two decades of experience, including leadership of data analytics, project management, and product management.

His appointment further reinforces PDS’ commitment to its digital pillar and a future-ready platform, the company said.

Parle Agro appoints Avadhut Parab as CIO

Avadhut Parab has joined Parle Agro as CIO, based in Mumbai. He joins the Indian beverage company after a 17-year stint at Wockhardt where he was associate vice president of information technology head.

Prior to Wockhardt, he held positions at Atos and Unichem labs. Parab was a former CIO100 India winner and holds a doctorate in management.

Cera Group appoints Manish Chandegara as group CIO

Manish Chandegara has joined Cera Group as group CIO. He was previously head of IT at Aditya Birla Insulators. Prior to that, he worked at Maahi Milk Producer, KSP solutions, Magna Seatings, and Adani Group.

Chandegara has over 20 years’ experience in managing IT and communication systems.  He has assisted the top management in planning IT strategies and leveraging technologies for rationalizing manpower, enhancing organizational productivity, and improving the efficiency of operations.

February 2022

Amit Goel joins Blox as CTO

Real estate buying platform Blox has appointed Amit Goel as its chief technology officer, based in Mumbai.

Goel has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry. He has worked across sectors including payments, finance, and trading and has held leadership positions at Dhani, Droom, and PayPal. He co-founded Room on Call (now Hotelopedia) in 2015, where he set up the complete technology infrastructure, development, product management, and operations.

Web Werks India hires Kamal Goel as director of IT

Kamal Goel has migrated from one data centre operator to another. Now director of IT and chief evangelist at Web Werks India, he was previously executive vice-president of IT and chief evangelist at Yotta Infrastructure.

Before that he worked in a number of other roles in IT infrastructure and data centre planning and management.

Web Werks operates Tier-III data centres, in Mumbai, Pune and Delhi, with plans to open others in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Publicis Groupe India names Roopesh Pujari as CTO

Roopesh Pujari has been promoted to CTO at marketing and advertising firm Publicis Groupe India. He joined Publicis Media in 2019. In his new role, Pujari will steer development of the company’s technology capabilities in India, including expansion of cloud solutions, platform integration, capability and capacity building, and streamlining partners.

Pujari has over 25 years of experience across sectors including BFSI, manufacturing, consulting, publishing, airlines, and healthcare. He worked in organizations in India and the US and has rich experience in hiring and ramping up teams in both countries.

January 2022

Prashant Thakur joins Vakrangee as head of tech and digital

Vakrangee, a Mumbai-based provider of banking and e-governance services, has appointed Prashanth Thakur as senior vice president and head of technology and digital. At Vakrangee, he will be responsible for managing the technology stack, automation, tech operations and digitization of key businesses in the organization.

Thakur joins from HDFC Life where he was an assistant vice president responsible for managing technology related to digital servicing and automation, and before that worked at Reliance Jio and in a number of consulting roles. He brings expertise in developing IT strategy, digital transformation, AI engineering, process optimization and operations.

December 2021

Airtel CISO Manish Tiwari joins Fractal as CIO

Fractal Analytics has appointed Manish Tiwari as its CIO. He will be based in Gurugram. At Fractal, Tiwari will be responsible for the company’s digital transformation and overseeing IT operations, cybersecurity, and risk management.   

Prior to joining Fractal, Tiwari was senior vice-president and global CISO at Airtel, where he set up the managed security services initiative Airtel Secure for Business. Before that, he was the chief information security advisor at Microsoft India. 

A certified lead auditor, hacking forensic investigator, and security analyst, Tiwari is an IT veteran from the Indian Navy where he set up the information security and incident response organization, including the formulation of policy frameworks, security audits, product testing, cyber forensics, and risk management. 

Rossari Biotech appoints Rakesh Dhanda as CIO

Rakesh Dhanda has joined chemical manufacturer Rossari Biotech as CIO. Based in Mumbai, Dhanda will oversee IT and digital functions for the company. He will also plan and implement the company’s IT and digital strategy.

Dhanda has over 20 years’ experience in IT operations and digital transformation. In his previous role at L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering, he was the head of digital transformation (CDO), where he was responsible for the formulation of digitalization strategy for all business units and implementing digital solutions. 

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 2021

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 2021

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 positions 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 startups and consulting. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi.

August 2021

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.

Based in Mumbai, he will have responsibility for IT strategy and innovation.

Khona has more 17 years of experience across retail, telecommunications, 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 2021

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 re-joined 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 2021

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 centres.

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 centre, telecom, BFSI, and retail.

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 centre 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 fulfilment 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 2021

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.

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 applications 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 fulfilment 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.

New CIO appointments in India, 2020

November 2020

Shiju Rawther joins CARE Ratings as chief information and technology officer

Ramesh Lakshminarayanan appointed CIO at HDFC Bank

October 2020

Piramal Glass names Sudip Mazumder global chief digital and information officer 

Giridhar Yasa joins Lendingkart as CTO

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

Mohit Kapoor joins Mahindra as Group CTO

September 2020

George Fanthome joins Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) as CIO

Shuvankar Pramanick joins Columbia Asia Hospitals as CIO

July 2020

A Shiju Rawther joins Poonawalla Finance as CIO 

June 2020

Manish Shetty joins Diageo as CIO

Amit Waghmare appointed CIO at DB Corp

May 2020

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

Bhavesh Lakhani joins IndusInd Bank as CTO

April 2020

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

March 2020

Kapil Pal joins United Breweries as head of IT

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

Irshad Saifi joins law firm Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAMCO) as CIO and CDO

Abhishek Agarwal joins Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) as head of IT

Yotta Infrastructure appoints Kamal Goel as executive vice-president for IT

February 2020

Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) appoints Raj Mohan Srinivasan as CIO

January 2020

Pankaj Pandey joins SBI General Insurance as Head-IT

New CIO appointments in India, 2019

December 2019

Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India appoints Mahendra K Upadhyay as CIO

Arindam Sengupta joins Dixcy Textiles as CIO

November 2019

Piyush Kumar Chowhan joins Lulu Group International as Group CIO

Yotta Infrastructure Appoints Manish Israni as head of IT operations and CIO 

Spicejet appoints Ashish Vikram as chief technology and innovation officer 

Hero Cycles appoints Shaveta Wadhera as group chief digital officer

October 2019

Anand Ruhela appointed IT head at Manipal Global Group

September 2019

Usha International appoints Sachin Gupta chief information and innovation officer

Evercare Group appoints Sumit Puri as Group CTO 

Prashant Singh joins Max Healthcare as Director and CIO

Cholamandalam MS General Insurance names Anubhav Rajput CIO

August 2019

Archie Jackson to head IT team at Incedo

July 2019

The Indian Express appoints Amardeep Vishwakarma as CTO

April 2019

M Sivasubramanian joins VA Tech Wabag as CIO

March 2019

Alembic Pharmaceuticals appoints Jitendra Mishra as its new VP-CIO

Sharat M Airani joins Bluechink as Chief Digital Officer

Rajesh Garg joins Trident as CXO-IT

February 2019

Paytm Money appoints Suresh Vasudevan as its CTO

Rockman Industries appoints Manzar Abbas as CIO

The Great Eastern Shipping Co. appoints Pavan Tsunduru as CIO 

Glory Nelson joins WOW Airlines as head of digital 

January 2019

Pidilite Industries appoints Mayur Danait as CIO 

Bajaj Allianz Insurance appoints Gautam Datta as chief information and technology officer

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