ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank by consolidated assets, recently announced that it will transform 100 villages into ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ in as many days to provide digital ecosystem across the country in the wake of the demonetisation. This will allow villagers use digital channels for banking and payments transactions. Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank said, “ICICI Bank continues to be a catalyst to accelerate development in our country. We strongly feel that technology can play an important role in putting development on a fast lane. By leveraging technology, we converted Akodara in Gujarat from a village to India’s first digital village last year. Its success motivates us to scale up the initiative a big way—we will now convert 100 villages across the country into digital villages. We will create a cashless ecosystem at these villages, provide vocational training to 10,000 villagers in first 100 days and offer them credit linkages so that the villagers can start their own business ventures. I am confident that this large project will contribute significantly to the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of a Digital India.” Union Textiles Minister Smriti Z Irani tweeted, “I thank Chanda Kochharji for pro-active approach in helping digitise villages adopted by me under Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.”
Amruta Fadnavis, wife of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis made her on screen debut with Amitabh Bachchan in a music video. She has lent her voice to songs in Prakash Jha’s Jai Gangaajal and Kunal Kohli’s Phir Se. Amruta has now decided to step in front of the camera. And giving her company is Big B himself. According to media reports, the music video was shot at South Mumbai’s Opera House. Choreographer Ahmed Khan got Bachchan and Amruta to shake a leg in the song, produced by Bhushan Kumar. Dressed in red, Amruta looked glamorous. “It’s a beautiful song, titled ‘Phir Se’, which will see Amrutaji seeking admission to a performing arts institute headed by Amitji. There is a conversational scene between them,” Ahmed Khan said.
Managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE), Chitra Ramkrishna has quit, according to an NSE statement. The resignation comes at a time when the exchange is preparing for its initial public offering (IPO), slated for January. “The board of directors of NSE accepted her resignation,” the statement said. Ramkrishna tendered her resignation due to personal reasons. J. Ravichandran, who serves as group president (finance and legal) and company secretary at NSE, has been named interim managing director and CEO of NSE. Ramkrishna’s tenure would have ended in 2018. She was appointed as NSE head in April 2013 for five years. While NSE’s market share has grown to 86 per cent in cash equities and nearly 100 per cent share in equity derivatives in her tenure, the exchange has also faced a number of controversies such as the ones over its proposed listing, alleged irregularities on its co-location platform and hiring of external consultants at senior levels.
Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal together own less than 6.5% of the company and had to raise nearly $2 billion over the past seven years, documents with the Registrar of Companies show. They together held about 8.5% in the company at the end of 2014. Chief Executive Officer Bahl currently holds 3.94%, while Bansal, the Chief Operating Officer, holds 2.44%. The largest shareholder in Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd) has nearly 33 % shares. The other top investors are Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, eBay Inc., Foxconn Technology Group and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The shareholding pattern assumes 4.5% of Snapdeal stock that has been set aside towards employee stock options. Meanwhile, Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal own 14-15% together; Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma controls 20% of the payment platform; Ola co-founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati own 10% in the company.
Two of India’s largest software exporters, Infosys and Cognizant have warned that there is a shortage of talent in the United States, a concern that has to be looked at by President-elect Donald Trump when he assumes office. Trump, who won the election on his anti-immigrant and anti-outsourcing campaign, had warned of policy changes that would retain jobs for locals, while throwing illegal immi- grants out of the United States. Trump targeted IBM, the US technology player which has a sizeable presence in India, and other outsourcers such as HCL Tech- nologies and TCS during his campaign. Talking on the issue, Vishal Sikka, chief executive officer of Infosys, at the Credit Suisse 20th Annual Technology, Media and Telecom Conference said, “There is a talent shortage; that is something that has to be balanced. It is not that the H1B visa employees are coming in to displace jobs. If you look at many other high-tech companies, they all hire H1B visa workers because there is an inherent shortage.” Cognizant, which is headquartered in the US but follows the offshore model with the majority of its workers in countries such as India, said the US does not have enough graduates passing out who can handle the disruptions in technology. Sikka, a US citizen, said Infosys was hiring more locals and expects the Trump presidency to be more business-friendly.
Prabir Jha, global chief people officer, Cipla, tops the list of Power Profiles, with 1,35,361 followers, as the most viewed human resources professionals on LinkedIn in India this year. He is followed by Anuranjita Kumar, managing director and chief human resources officer, Citi, South Asia; Nathan SV, human resources leader, Deloitte; Vikash Modi, president—human capital management, YES Bank; Sanjay Jorapur, chief human resources officer, Hero MotoCorp; Srinivas Chunduru, executive director, Piramal Group; Harjeet Khanduja, vice president human resources, Reliance Jio; Yuvaraj Srivastava, chief human resource officer, MakeMyTrip.com, and Srikanth Balachandran, global chief human resources officer, Airtel. Power Profiles campaign is a list of the country’s most viewed profiles on LinkedIn, which includes professionals and entrepreneurs from across industries, such as technology, finance, Internet, human resources and other.
Bollywood star Akshay Kumar has sent financial aid of Rs. 9 lakh to the family of Prabhu Singh, a jawan martyred in Pakistan sponsored terrorists recently. The terrorists had mutiliated Prabhu Singh. After reading newspaper reports about this, Akshay Kumar managed to procure telephone number of Prabhhum Singh’s father Chandra Singh and deposited the amount in his bank account. Chandra Singh said, “Akshay Kumar himself called me up and sent money on my acccount. I plan to spend the money on education of Prabhu’s sister and daughter. Akshay Kumar has promised me to send more money if needed.
Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell recently announced its plan to shift nearly 400 jobs to India and Malaysia. The move is aimed at improving the company’s finances against persistently low oil prices. Shell told 380 staff at its finance operations in Glasgow that the office would be closed and they were facing ‘involuntary severance’. These jobs will be moved over a 15-month period to locations such as Shell’s offices in Chennai in India and Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia. The company stated that the decision was a sign that the capability of its other centres has evolved to be able to handle the activities that are currently performed in Glasgow at a significantly lower cost.
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Mastercard’s Ajay Banga are among four leading India-born CEOs who have featured in Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year list which has Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on its top. Nadella has been ranked fifth among 50 global corporate heads by Fortune magazine in its annual ‘Businessperson of the Year’ compilation, followed by CEO of Milwaukee-based maker of water heaters A O Smith Ajita Rajendra on the 34th spot, HDFC Bank’s Managing Director Aditya Puri on the 36th position and Banga on 40th. Zuckerberg took home the annual honour of Businessperson of the Year, with Fortune saying his success rests on three pillars of “his unique ability to look into the future, his other- worldly consistency, and the business discipline he has nurtured in an industry quite often enamoured with bright, shiny objects.” The 2016 list includes ‘star executives with wildly varying styles and approaches, but one thing in common: They deliver, big-time,’ according to Fortune. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, calling Nadella a “great leader” for the tech- nology giant, said Nadella “has done a great job im- proving perceptions of the company in ways that can advance its agenda with developers, industry partici- pants, and investors.” Under Puri, who has led HDFC for two decades, Fortune said there has been nothing boring about its growth, from a pipsqueak with USD 40 million in revenues to one of India’s largest banks with USD 5.6 billion. The list of 50 business tycoons also includes Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at number two, Alphabet CEO Larry Page at four, Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma at ten, Apple CEO Tim Cook at 11, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick at 15 and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz at 29.
President-elect Trump announced his choice of Seema Verma, one of the leading experts on Medicare and Medicaid, to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “I am pleased to nominate Seema Verma to serve as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,” said President-elect Trump. “She has decades of experience advising on Medicare and Medicaid policy and helping states navigate our complicated systems. Together, Chairman Price and Seema Verma are the dream team that will transform our healthcare system for the benefit of all Americans.” Reacting to the nomination, Mrs Verma said, “I am honoured to be nominated by President-elect Trump. I look forward to helping him tackle our nation’s daunting healthcare problems in a responsible and sustainable way.”
Her nomination comes days after Indian-American Nikki Haley was named as US envoy to the United Nations by Trump. Haley had scripted history by becoming the first-ever Indian-American to be appointed to a cabinet-level post in US administration. “Governor Haley has a proven track record of bringing people together regardless of background or party affiliation to move critical policies forward for the betterment of her state and country,” Trump said, referring to his former critic with whom he sparred bitterly during campaign. The 44-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants from Punjab, Haley is the first woman tapped by Trump for a top-level administration post during his transition to the White House.
Myntra, which acquired smaller rival Jabong earlier this year, aims to hit $2 billion in revenue run rate and also turn profitable by the end of the 2017-18 fiscal year, driven mainly by a rapidly growing user base. Myntra chief executive officer Ananth Narayanan said Myntra’s acquisition of Jabong had also boosted the company’s numbers, adding that it wants to turn EBITDA-positive in the next financial year. EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) is an indicator of operating profitability. “This year, if I put it in a historical context, has been the best year Myntra has ever had—we grew 80 per cent year-on-year. We hit $1-billion run rate during the year, in terms of annualised run rate...and that’s primarily because our monthly active user base grew. And that wasn’t during a sale month—but on an ongoing basis,” said Narayanan. Narayanan, who expects Myntra to post 100 per cent revenue growth next year, said the company wants to improve its net promoter score (NPS)—a leading indicator of customer satisfaction—to about 60 per cent by the end of the next financial year, from current levels of about 50 per cent. The fashion retailer will curate clothing lines based on fashion trends and also launch a mobile app-based chat support service for customers to enable users and the brands listed on the portal to interact. Narayanan said, “October was a historical month for Jabong as well because we became unit-economics positive for the first time.”
Two leading chiefs of Flipkart Internet Pvt.Ltd-vice-president & private label head Mausam Bhatt and senior vice-president of engineering Peeyush Ranjan have resigned. While Bhatt’s next move is unclear, Ranjan is moving to join online rental platform Airbnb Inc. in the US. Adarsh Menon, who headed Flipkart’s electronics business, will replace Bhatt. Flipkart’s current engineering chief Ravi Garikipati will take over the responsibilities of Ranjan, who was one of the company’s high-profile hires from the Silicon Valley. Ranjan, who joined Flipkart in May 2015 from Google (Alphabet Inc.), moved back to the US gave up his day-to-day responsibilities of overseeing Flipkart’s engineering function. He helped launch the company’s San Francisco office where engineers and computer scientists are working on mobile technology, machine learning and other newer technology areas. “A few months ago, I had to move to the US due to personal reasons. Around that time, we had set up a research lab in Palo Alto that I was overseeing—we’re doing some very cool things in the lab there. However, due to the personal reasons I spoke about, around that time it became clearer that I would have to spend a considerable time in the US, which is why I have decided to move on,” Ranjan said.
by Joe Williams
