Delaporte, first non-Indian CEO at Wipro and India's IT industry, will have to turn around business verticals such as healthcare and energy and utilities and regain the “diminishing” market share of the company. Wipro, which has seen four chief executives including two Joint CEOs in the last decade, has lagged its peers in growth. It lost its third position to HCL Technologies in the previous fiscal year.

“Thierry Delaporte needs to re-energize the leadership team and give them a strong direction to keep their critical clients happy - and he will surely spend the first few weeks talking with as many as possible,” said Phil Fersht, chief executive, HfS Research.

Delaporte, who joined Capgemini in 1995, through its acquisition of Sogeti and spent nearly 25 years at the French tech services major, is well-known in the industry for his excellence in driving growth in banking and financial services. Delaporte, who helped integrate iGATE with Capgemini quit after he lost out to Aiman Ezzat for the top job.

One of the significant tasks is getting Wipro back to industry matching growth, said Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive, Everest Group, a US-based IT research and advisory firm. “This is going to be made harder as he is taking over in the middle of the Pandemic and his travel and ability to meet with key leaders as well as customers is going to be complicated by travel restrictions. Having said that Thierry (Delaporte) is a very capable executive and will be able to use his Paris base as a great bridge in time zones between India and the US,” said Bendor-Samuel.

Abidali Neemuchwala, who stepped down as Wipro CEO in June after a four year stint, struggled to revive fortunes of Wipro, despite spending over $ 1 billion in acquisitions and restructuring businesses.

Fersht of HfS listed out a few key steps Delaporte needs to focus to turn around things at India’s fourth largest software services exporter.

“At least for the first few months, opening up the war chest may seem like the natural way for a new CEO to make a stamp on a firm. But with Wipro, acquisitions have a checkered past, and even those that have worked have taken several years to fully embed. Instead, the firm should focus on turning around creaking business lines – and above all, get them talking to each other. A process Abid started, but sadly failed to finish,” said Fersht.

He believes that the company under Delaporte should build a “distinctive vision for the modern enterprise” much in line with what KPMG has as its powered enterprise, TCS as its Business 4.0, HCL Tech has Mode 1,2,3 redefining the traditional software services and digital technology-led services. (Source: Economic Times)

Mr. Sanjay Kaul – President, CISCO systems (APAC and Japan, Service Provider Business) has joined as the Chief Advisor to GX Group’s board of directors. Sanjay’s vast experience in the field of telecom and digital connectivity, will surely have an impact on the company’s future endeavors.

On being appointed as the Director of Advisory Board for GX Group(www.gxgroup.eu), Mr. Sanjay Kaul said, “The increasing demand of high speed broadband along with European quality stamp is right value to the market which has to accelerate leaps and bounds post COVID-19. GX Group has a strong technology innovation and compelling value proposition for SP’s, Cable Operators and real estate businesses. I am truly excited to support GX growth in APJC region”

GX Group’s Make in India vision
GX Group is a European market leading Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) company with 20 years of experience, focused on Manufacturing and Development of FTTH products. Quality and innovation have always been their focus where they invest major part in our R&D team developing next generation PON (GPON/XGPON/XGSPON) solutions.

GX Group is working closely with the Invest India forum, to support the Make in India production strategy, which is supported by the increasing Global demand along with the local India market growth. GX started their first trial production setup already in 2014, and has since then been focused on mass scale production setup. (Source: Convergence Plus)

He would report to Uday Shankar -president of The Walt Disney Company APAC and chairman of Star and Disney India.

Commenting on the development Walt Disney Company APAC President Uday Shankar said: Sunil is an exciting talent with global accomplishments. At Disney + Hotstar India, we are on a mission to create the country’s largest and most advanced platform for curated content, and Sunil is just the right person to drive that ambition, he added.

Before Google, he was with McKinsey and Co for eight years and has also worked with IBM and Infosys. Disney+ Hotstar competes with Netflix, Amazon Prime, ZEE5 and ALTBalaji in the video streaming market which has witnessed fast adoption by the consumers during the lockdown. (Source: The Hindu Businessline)

ON GROWTH PATH
“We have grown over 20 times in the past three years by creating a payments-led lifestyle and financial services app in our country,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive officer at Paytm.

“The next phase of our journey is to expand our offerings in consumer internet and financial services. As we expand our business, we are promoting Madhur to the role of president. He has been a key partner in this success.”

Deora, who had so far been spearheading all dealmaking at the company, had led Paytm through its multiple financing rounds along with a slew of acquisitions it has completed. One97 Communications, the parent of Paytm, has been in talks to raise a new $1-1.5 billion in fresh capital.

JOB CARD
Verticals like games, movies, travel, deals and content will be headed by Deora and he will be responsible for managing the growth and financials of these businesses, said a Paytm spokesperson.

The spokesperson also said that the company is planning to hire a CFO in place of Deora within the next few weeks.

Further, Paytm also has plans to create new roles at the top of the management and the role of a president is one of them, he said.

Sources pointed out that the latest move will make Deora the second in command in the company after Sharma, whom he will continue to report to. The changes at the top come in the wake of a number of senior executives quitting Paytm and Paytm Mall over the past few months. (Source: Economic Times)

Sivasailam will be a special secretary-- Logistics in the Department of Commerce.

The Committee has approved the appointment of N Sivasailam, special secretary in the Department of Telecommunications as special secretary (Logistics), Department of Commerce, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), in a notification Saturday said.

However, the Centre has appointed Anshu Prakash, a 1986 batch AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territories) cadre officer, presently working as a chief secretary of Delhi, as an additional secretary, following the vacancy caused by Sivasailam's movement.

Prakash will report to telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan.

Sivasailam, a 1985 batch Karnataka cadre officer has been elevated to the rank of special secretary in January this year.

On Saturday, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), in a reshuffle, has shifted various high-level officials.

"They (the government) have given me another responsibility, so I will report to the Department of Commerce in a new role on Monday," Sivasailam told ETTelecom.

"There was no project under me," the top official said, when asked about some of the mega programs underway.

The move, however, is also seen as a step to fast-forward some of the ongoing ambitious initiatives in the telecom department, including BharatNet and Broadband for All as well as connectivity in the 115 most-backward districts, being monitored by the Prime Minister Office (PMO). (Source:ETTelecom)

Mardikar’s appointment comes in the wake of the exit of Jagbir Singh, who had joined the company before the soft launch of 4G services and quit in June this year. Mardikar most recently served Bharti Airtel as its chief technology officer for mobile networks for almost two years. He had been with the company since August 2012.

He will be based in Mumbai and report to Mathew Oommen, who is the president of Jio and a member of the board of directors at the MukeshAmbani-owned telecom operator.

A query sent to Jio went unanswered, while Mardikar could not be reached for comment.

Jio is aggressively expanding its 4G LTE network for coverage and capacity in India as part of its bitter battle for subscribers with rivals Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel. It is deepening its coverage in existing areas to achieve 99% population coverage in the current financial year and plans to soon start work on 5G technology.

The company currently offers pan-India 4G coverage using 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2300MHz bands. In the April-June quarter, it said, it carried 76% of the total 4G data traffic in the country.

Bharti Airtel, on the other hand, brought in Randeep Singh Sekhon to head the networks department as the new chief of technology for its India and South Asia operations, replacing Savargaonkar.

Sekhon, who is reporting to Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal, earlier worked in various senior leadership roles with telcos in Malaysia and Indonesia, with his previous role being that of CEO of Hutchison 3 Indonesia.(Source:ETTelecom)

Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of the Board in a statement last month, said that Parekh has a strong track record of executing business turnarounds and managing very successful acquisitions. “The board believes that he is the right person to lead Infosys at this transformative time in our industry.”

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee, said that Parekh was selected after a comprehensive global search effort and was the top choice from a pool of highly qualified candidates. The new CEO has a Master of Engineering degrees in Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

UB Pravin Rao will step down as the interim CEO and Managing Director effective January 2 and will continue as Chief Operating Officer and a whole-time Director of the company.( Source: The Hindu BusinessLine)

Khandelwal elevation to a global role is testimony once again to the value Indian leaders bring in frontline technology. His predecessor in SAP Labs India, V R Ferose, became the senior vice president and head of globalization services at SAP. Khandewal will report to Bernd Leukert, member of the executive board, in charge of products & innovation. "Dilip will have a global responsibility for the deployment of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud and will oversee its adoption and customer success," the company said in a statement.

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud delivers comprehensive cloud infrastructure and managed services for SAP's in-memory applications, database, and platform. In the recent June quarter analysts' call, SAP CEO Bill McDermott called out S/4HANA as the fastest growing cloud ERP solution in the market and said SAP is growing new cloud bookings at triple digits. The quarter marked the 17th consecutive quarter of consistent rapid growth in the cloud for SAP. S/4HANA also connects enterprises to the internet of things and big data.

Khandelwal said his focus would be to use "our unparalleled cloud expertise to drive the digital transformation of our customers." Khandelwal has been with SAP for over 16 years and has held leadership positions across SAP's technology and business portfolios. As managing director of SAP Labs India, he has been instrumental in driving innovation through the product lines and establishing SAP Labs India as a leading centre of innovation across SAP's R&D ecosystem. (Source: Times of India)

Paytm Mall's category leaders, logistics and operations functions will report to Sinha. He “will be responsible for overall operations of Paytm Mall and expanding the team to ensure customers have access to the widest assortment of products,” according to a release.

Sinha, an MBA from Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta with an engineering degree from Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, has spent nearly a decade at One 97 Communications across business process, human resources and finance functions.

The company was earlier also looking to rope in an external candidate to lead the ecommerce business, but a Paytm spokeswoman confirmed it is no longer looking for a CEO. “At Paytm Mall, we are addressing a unique opportunity of giving small businesses and retailers access to mobile internet technology to address India's large mobile consumer base.

Amit's experience in building businesses since their inception makes him our best choice to lead our commerce business,” Sharma said in a statement.

The move comes weeks after One 97 Communications named another group veteran Renu Satti as head of the payments bank unit. While 49% of Paytm Payments Bank is owned by One 97 Communications, the remaining 51% is held by Sharma. (Source: Economic Times)